Does a single male have any hope?

[~birdybea~]

I posted in the Memorial forum, but i lost the female of my breeding tiel pair this afternoon. She laid her second egg this morning. All day Sorcha (the male) has been sitting on the eggs, and he still is, so he is yet to discover his mate is gone.

This leads to a couple of questions. First thing is, i think he's waiting for Lucy to go into the nest and relieve him of egg duty. Will he come out to eat on his own eventually? Usually by this time Lucy is on the eggs and Sorcha is out and eating.

Second question, is it possible for a single male tiel to incubate eggs alone? I know single female budgies can, but they have to have some kind of maternal instinct. I basically have very little hope for these eggs given the circumstances, but i'm going to give Sorcha a shot.

One idea i thought of is to put the eggs under the baby budgies over night, and leave them for Sorcha during the day. This would mean he would only have to do the normal male tiel egg shift, not 24hrs. Does this have any potential to work?

 

[~birdybea~]

Sorcha has now been in the nest box for at least 14 hours straight. Surely he has to come out to eat and poop.

 

[suncoast]

Went for help Sweetheart.

Ginger

 

[Billie Faye]

Some will others won't...
She had just started laying these eggs, right?....so I don't know if he will sit the whole duration...
The other thing you can do is to put some food/water around him and see if he will eat it...as for coming out..he should do that...You haven't found any poops on the outside????

 

[Birdiemarie]

I moved this to the 911 section so it will get a lot of attention (thanks Ginger).

 

[birdlady]

Sorry Belinda, I really dont' know much about this. I am sure someone will have some ideas soon.

 

[Greycloud]

Sorry for the loss of your hen. The male will sit for a while then generally he will just abandon the nest and the eggs die. If you have another pair on eggs or budgies on eggs you can move them to their nest and see if they will incubate. Some do some will just ignore them.

 

[atvchick95]

Jack raised his baby alone after Jill Died Last Jan. and incubated the rest of the eggs even though only the one (Lucky) hatched. he did a great job and he's still here today

He would come out to eat and poop and then go back in the nest.

I used to think they were both girls because they were both silent - like they couldn't make a peep if they wanted to, But they'd both screech when we held them and they didn't want held... about a month after Jill Died.. Jack started whistling (keep in mind at first I thought it was Jack who died... because they looked a lot a like it was hard to tell them apart)he hasn't stopped since If it wasn't for 2 different babies being born I'd never would of stopped thinking they were both girls

but a single bird parent can raise babies just fine. Just make sure he's eating even if you have to put the food in the nest box at first. or some millet so he's at least eating something he'll soon realize its all up to him

 

[~birdybea~]

Thanks for moving the thread, and thanks for the advice guys.

He popped out briefly last night to eat, though he didn't poop so i think it might have been a very quick snack. I put millet in there (much to his disgust, how dare i add furnishings to HIS perfectly arranged nest) last night, i'm not sure if he's eaten any cause i want to be careful and disturb him as little as possible.

Lucy had only just laid these eggs, so if Sorcha can do it he's got 20 days of incubating ahead of him.

 

[Billie Faye]

If he is not eating ...his poops aren't going to be much size, if any....can you see anything in the nest area? or just outside the door?

 

[J*M*L]

I wish I could give you good advice! Poor Sorcha, I feel so bad for him.

 

[JLcribber]

If he doesn't come out at all you might just have to "convince" him to come out for a short period of time away and out of sight of the nest so he will eat and poop. Once away from there he won't know if the eggs are being sat on or not. It doesn't need to be long. Just long enough to get some food and drop a bomb.

 

[Hendryx]

I have heard of a few males incubating and successfully hatching out babies on their own, I wouldn't worry to much,he will eat and poop when he needs to, he knows where his food and water is..he will either incubate or abandon,it's up to him at this point..

 

[Beatriz Cazeneuve]

I think that the way it works with tiels is that, once the babies are born, the father will feed the mother and the mother will, in turn, feed the babies. I don't know if fathers feed babies directly when they are first born although they do feed them when they are a bit bigger. I don't allow any of my psittacines to breed so I really do not have any experience with this subject. Do you know why your hen died? Did you have a necropsy done? Or was it that she was eggbound?

 

[vancha]

I've seen male cockatiels feed their babies before. My worry is that he will be overly stressed or abandon eggs/babies, so you're going to have to keep a close eye and be ready to intervene.