Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 6/5/2006

Question
thank you for the information Chrys.
In the breeding box, i put news papers, which the cockatiels have ripped up to make a nest. my question is, Is there anything else that might work better? because i think when the eggs have hatched it might be pretty hard to clean there area.I would appreciate any imput on this.
thank you.
selina


Answer -
Hi, Selina.  Thanks for posting.

I would suspect your yellow is laying infertile eggs.  A pair of tiels has to be pair-bonded before they will mate.  If the male and the yellow were not pair-bonded, they most likley didn't mate.  By him attacking her, I doubt they were pair-bonded.  Often times, a single female will lay eggs if she can see or hear another pair of birds mating (and sometimes just because her hormones are running rampant in the springtime).  Parrots aren't like dogs/cats...they have to "love" each other before they will mate.  You can candle her egg after it is 7-10 days old to see if it is fertile.  Shine a light through the egg (don't touch it with your bare skin), and see if you can see any veins in it.  Experiment with what you should see by using a chicken egg from your refrigerator...it is infertile.  I recommend you leave her egg in the bottom of the cage and let her abandon it on her own.  If you remove it, she may continue to lay and lay until she has a full clutch of eggs.  She may lay more eggs, but just leave them all alone until she abandons them.  Then you can remove them and throw them away.  

Chrys

Answer
Hi again, Selina.

You shouldn't put anything in the tiel's nestbox.  There are only a couple of parrots who make nests inside their nestboxes, and tiels aren't one of them!  I recommend you take the newspaper out completely.  The reason for not putting anything in the nesting box is so the female (the hen) can be as close to the eggs as possible for incubation purposes.  In other words, if you put newspaper inside, the eggs won't get the warmth they need from the mom to develop properly (depending on how deep the substrate is).  The parent tiels won't mess in the box and once the babies arrive, you will need to remove the babies every so often to clean inside the nestbox (as required).  Hopefully, you'll be pulling the babies completely from the parents at about 10 days for handfeeding, thus, no need to clean the nestbox any longer!

Chrys