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need some advice.....

hiccup

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Hi there, it's been ages since I posted, but I have some questions about cockatiel breeding, I'm just wondering what are the best suggestions for breeding boxes, shavings/bedding, mineral/vitamin adds, and that kind of stuff, I know the risks and rewards of breeding them.
My female just randomly laid eggs in the bottom of her cage this month, its the first time she has done so, she is 4. I have a male in a seperate cage who is about 3,They've been around each other for most of their lives so I'm hoping they'll bond.
My main concerns are seeing if they are compatible and if so what supplies are most recommended from there, I've read a couple books on it and am currently researching further, But I figured I'd come to the best source I know to ask first :)!!
 

Callista15

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Look, you probably don't want to do this. Sure, it can be great, but on the other hand it's tragic, expensive, and really makes you pull your hair out with a set of tweezers. Just recently I had to euthanize my favorite breeding male because he had congestive heart failure. Then my favorite little two-week-old died for seemingly no reason. This February I spent a week on tenter hooks, trying to keep a sickly little one alive, spending six hundred dollars in the process, counting only vet bills. Last summer, one hen acquired the nickname Diamond Jim because we spent more than three grand in two weeks, trying to save her from a mystery illness. Before that, the same hen slipped out the door, and left me crying for six days straight because I thought she was dead. Finding good homes? Must be easy? Think again. I've been trying for six weeks straight to find homes for six Seramas, and have only found homes for two. On top of that, fifty-four homes were turned down, or the people backed out, or didn't pan out for some other reason. And all this happened while breeding chickens. Not dogs or parrots, but chickens. And chickens are only slightly harder than finches.
 

Callista15

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Sorry. Maybe I should've been a little less harsh. Just had a very hard week.
 

cosmolove

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To be honest you probably won't get a ton of replies to this thread just because there really aren't all that many breeders on the forum anymore. Most of the members aren't really all that gung-ho about the practice of breeding in general.

Personally I'm not really for or against it, as long as you're doing it for the right reasons and you know what you're doing who am I to tell you what to do. Now I would take into consideration how hard it can be, I know someone personally who breeds cockatiels and it seems like she's always struggling with the babies for one reason or another. Whether it be her pair refuses to feed one of the babies so she's trying to handfeed from day one, one could get sick, sometimes they refuse to wean, from reading her facebook I can promise I would NEVER breed cockatiels :lol: I wouldn't have any hair left because I'd be pulling it out all the time.


Hopefully one of the members on here who do breed will see this and be able to answer your questions more specifically. I've never personally bred, just helped finish handfeeding some babies.

My advice to you tho, Good luck :)
 

RJ Noodle

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Cockatiels are the number one rehomed parrot. Sorry, but do you want to add to that number. Not usually one to speak up on this, but if you are willing to keep the babies then fine. Otherwise, wouldn't encourage this.
 

Anne & Gang

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I do not like the idea of tiel breeding, simply because there are so very many on craigslist or in rescues. However, I commend you for doing your research. There are a couple of really wonderful people on here who should be able to help you out so keep on watching this thread. @melissasparrots @Monica @petiteoiseau
 

petiteoiseau

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Well, for one thing, if the hen is 4 and the male is 3, you should have already been able to ascertain if they like each other or not because, if they do, you would see them canoodling when they come out to fly. If you don't let them out to fly every day, you can't breed the hen because the muscles she will use for laying are not strong enough and she might become eggbound (she needs 6 months of daily flying prior breeding). For another, breeding is not thought of during or immediately before breeding season (we are at the end of it right now), you need to start planning a year in advance because, in order to do it right, they both have to be in top condition (gotta make sure they have a good diet, supplemented calcium and vit D3 adequately, provided good quality full spectrum light, a large flight cage for both, etc) and have their endocrine system fully attuned to the seasons.

I allow all my birds to go through the motions of breeding (courtship, nesting, laying, incubating) but I don't allow actual reproduction. The motions are enough to keep them healthy (I think that breeding is the most natural thing for birds and should not be avoided or encouraged, just go with the flow and be prepared for it in case it happens so it's doesn't end up as been detrimental to their health) and happy (it's the strongest urge/drive there is in nature) and, without babies, I am not contributing to the overpopulation problem we have with parrots.
 

Laurie

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Another important consideration in breeding birds is to make sure that they are unrelated and though I do not know much about cockatiels there are probably certain mutations that should not be bred together.

People either do not know, or don't care what they put together these days and it is ruining (or in many cases has ruined) our captive population of parrots. Many live shorter and more sickly lives due to the indiscriminate pairing of mates.

This has happened with parrotlets and seems to now be irreversible. Sadly, your average parrotlet is small (compared to the wild type and the captive ones of years ago) and does not live as long as expected.

If you don't know the family history of your birds please don't let them reproduce.

I also second the post about making sure the birds are in top condition for breeding. In your research you should have come across this very important topic.
 

melissasparrots

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Another important consideration in breeding birds is to make sure that they are unrelated and though I do not know much about cockatiels there are probably certain mutations that should not be bred together.

People either do not know, or don't care what they put together these days and it is ruining (or in many cases has ruined) our captive population of parrots. Many live shorter and more sickly lives due to the indiscriminate pairing of mates.

This has happened with parrotlets and seems to now be irreversible. Sadly, your average parrotlet is small (compared to the wild type and the captive ones of years ago) and does not live as long as expected.

If you don't know the family history of your birds please don't let them reproduce.

I also second the post about making sure the birds are in top condition for breeding. In your research you should have come across this very important topic.
I agree with most of what you said in terms of making sure the birds are high quality individuals and good representatives of their kind and not related. However, Sandee Molenda that has been breeding parrotlets since they were wild caught will tell you the average wild caught Pacific Parrotlet only weight about 26-28 grams. Overall, they are larger now in captivity. With many blue line parrotlets being in the 30+ gram range. Although, yes as you said, their life expectancy is dropping. Even my old green female parrotlet that was split to blue and had a long family history of mutation colors has not lived as long as my female that had no or much less extensive mutation breeding in her background. Its important to make good decisions about the longevity of the birds before breeding them. Just being a mutation color isn't what gets them. Its the selective breeding for that color with no regard for health. My old male cockatiel lived to be around 27 and he was a cinnamon pearl pied which was about as much mutation in one bird as you saw back then. However, he was produced before multiple generations of color breeding and backyard breeders did their damage.

Just liking your birds a whole bunch and thinking they look good to you isn't a valid reason to breed a bird. Although, to just answer the question, I used to just go to Petsmart to get a cockatiel sized nest box. Its not ideal because its always possible for there to be viruses in those boxes from the birds kept in the store. Ideally, buy one online. I believe a typical cockatiel box is around 10X10 inches square give or take an inch. I have used pine shavings and aspen shavings with success. I generally use aspen shavings myself since I'm allergic to pine, although I think the birds often like the pine shavings better with them being a little different texture. If I were to take up breeding or keeping cockatiels in the future, I'd be doing a sprout based diet with periodic supplements using Hagan Prime. If your birds are just eating seed and the odd veggie every once in a while then probably don't let them breed. If they are eating a few pellets, some seed and good with the veggies, then just a very light supplement dusting on the soft food periodically should do it for them. Increasing the supplements once the female starts laying. If your birds are eating a lot of pellets, then you should not supplement unless your female is laying a lot of eggs. I also keep a cuttle bone in the cage for laying females. I like Hagan Prime myself but most any powdered avian vitamin with calcium and vitamin D3 will work. I am not a big fan of going overboard with the supplements and only use it rarely during the non-breeding season, but bump it up to several times a week after the female starts laying, or daily if she's doing a second clutch. Thats just what I do.

Do realize either or both birds could decide you aren't any fun anymore and lose a lot of their personable pet qualities. My females always stayed decent although more attached to their mate than to me. My males always just became outright mean and stayed that way once paired with a female. In fact, once that change happened, they didn't go back even when separated from females later in life. Overall, I'd encourage you not to breed them.
 

Abigail

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I think breeding is alright, just be prepared, careful and smart about it. Perhaps find homes in advance, or plan to keep them. Make sure you have money for them, to feed them and provide housing for them and especially in case of emergencies. (Vet bills are expensive!) Don't let others put you down too much for doing this, but do take their points into consideration.
 

Laurul Feather Cat

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So right now they have separate cages, right? Are they close to one another? If not, sit them right next to each other. Let them flirt and think about it. If you can, leave the old eggs in the bottom of the hen's cage for a while longer and let the cock see she has eggs. See if he is drawn to the eggs. When Gracie Tiel was young, she laid two massive clutches of eggs (first year 17 & second year 14). Her new mate was around and became interested in the eggs in her cage the second year and tried sitting on them till Grace threw him out of her cage each night. I knew Chip was interested in Grace because he sang to her and did heartwings from early fall on. Grace wasn't moved and ignored him for a few more months, however. Then she started allowing him to sit by her, eat with her and, finally, to groom her. Yet, still, he was not permitted to stay in her cage at night for a few more months. I was working night shift and would always remove him from her cage right before I left for work at ten pm. In December, when he continued getting into her cage at night, I did an experiment and closed and locked her cage door with Chip still inside. I stayed close for another hour to make sure she wasn't going to object about him being in her cage. No problems. Chip and Gracie co-occupied her (larger) cage from that day.

I started hearing some weird bird sounds after going to bed in the morning, but I didn't think anything about it. It wasn't fighting, so it was OK. Little did I know they were mating. Gracie laid eight eggs on the floor of the cage (I did not want babies, so I did not give her a box). They took turns sitting on the eggs after a week or so. One day I cleaned the cage and placed the eggs in the top of a small (four inch by four inch) box and then placed the eggs, still inside the box, onto the floor of the cage. On February 20th, I came home, as usual, made my coffee and oatmeal and let the birds out. I came into the living room to eat my breakfast and relax before going to bed. I sat down in my rocker and started the oatmeal. Gracie came over and helped herself to the oatmeal, milk and sugar and interacted with me for a few minutes while I watched the news. She then flew back to the cage and Chip came over and helped himself to my toast. I heard this high pitched rhythmic peeping, looked over to the cage and saw Gracie has feeding this... pink thing from her mouth. Or was it a bug that was bothering her and she was fighting with it? I walked over and saw the tiny pink thing had a beak and two feet and tiny wings and... Gracie had a baby!!! I was so shocked, my knees were weak. I had to sit down. I watched in wonder as Gracie continued to take oatmeal from my bowl and Chip toast from my breakfast and feed the baby. When I finally called everyone I knew to announce my grandbird, and I was ready to go to bed, Gracie refused to allow Chip to be locked into the cage with her. He was very upset; he wanted to be with his chicks. I called Gracie's breeder and they said she could kill Chip if I insisted on locking him inside the cage. I set up his old cage next to Gracie's and locked him in. He perched, grasped onto the cage side closest to the babies and stared at them. Grace didn't let him back in the cage for two weeks; he could go in when she was out and feed them, but he wasn't allowed to stay until she had hatched four of the eight eggs and had four growing babies to feed. All four chicks weaned and fledged and that started my breeding years.

Why tell you all this? To give you an idea of what to look for to determine if they will accept one another as a mate. Some birds don't like some other birds. If he does not make a move to move in with her, then get an entirely new, larger cage and let them get familiar with it. Then, one day you can lock them in the new cage together and watch them; see if they are upset or accepting it. If they settle down and occupy the new cage, then remove their old cages where they can't see them.

I have found the best breeder box is a plain square six by six or larger wooden cockatiel box. I attached it to the back of their cage, jutting out from the bars. I had cut a temporary hole in the bars so they could go directly into the box through the cage. You need to have the opening of the nestbox defended. I made the mistake of keeping the cage door open and one of the love birds got into a nestbox once and maimed a baby cockatiel. Luckily Grace had been in the box and chased the lovebird out right away, but the chick lost just about all of her upper beak and I ended up hand feeding this chick for eighteen months before I could wean her. Diva was a wonderful bird, however; just not much beak. She eventually did grow back enough beak to feed herself, but she had to eat pellets and could not shell seeds for herself. One of the negatives of breeding; other birds breaking into nestboxes.

Don't do more than one clutch of eggs a year. The parents get really run down raising the chicks. It is hard work for them. I let them raise the babies and I just handled them several times daily to tame the babies. Hand feeding is a time consuming and long process and may or may not produce 'human favoring' chicks.

If you have more questions, ask.
 

Monica

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I don't recommend breeding just because a hen lays an egg.

I have a 13 year old cockatiel that has been laying eggs for years, but she always lays duds! She has never accepted a mate (not that I've tried pairing her up!), so her eggs never get fertilized. She also doesn't understand the concept of incubating her eggs. She gets that she's supposed to sit on them, but she doesn't know how to. She then gets bored of trying to figure it out and wanders away. She's probably be terrified if one of her eggs hatches a 'little pink alien'!


Not all hens are cut out for breeding.


If your two tiels pair up, are you ok with losing them as pets?

If they successfully breed, do you have experience in hand feeding?

Do you have an avian vet and breeder on hand who could help out in case of need or desire?

Can you hand feed 1-5 day old chicks every 2 hrs around the clock? (this means no sleep for the first week of their life! no sleep for maybe two to three weeks if there are multiple chicks!)

Do you have the necessary supplies for breeding and hand raising? (whether you plan to hand raise or not is irrelevant, you need to know how to in case of emergencies)





We can give you all the advice in the world over the internet, and you can try to learn how to do everything on your own, but some things are invaluably learned first hand from an experienced person! This includes hand feeding! You could run into problems such as crop burn, crop stasis, yeast infections, bacterial infections, over-stretched crop. You may also need to deal with things such as splayed legs, parents plucking chicks, parents mutilating chicks, parents overfeeding chicks, parents underfeeding chicks, parents neglecting chicks, chicks getting too cold, dehydrated chicks, etc!

Are you, or will you, be prepared for all those 'worst case' scenarios? And can you drop hundreds of dollars at the drop of a hat in case you need to take any birds to an a-vet?



Please, do a lot of research and think about this seriously before deciding if you truly want to try breeding!
 

hiccup

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Thanks Everyone, I'm still researching and have a few friends that work in shelters that have been giving me advise as well and a couple vets i've been chatting with about the risks, I appreciate all the advise, I do plan on Waiting with the breeding for a while as I want to still make sure that not only are they ready to be parents but that I'm ready for anything! lol I already have family and friends that are interested in the babies should they have any, and already have a large cage and a couple small cages set aside in case there are babies left over for me to love lol I'm going to keep researching and chatting with the vets and friends and as well with you lovely people :)
I only plan on having one maybe two clutches at the absolute most but no more then that, and if they don't want to make babies that is perfectly ok with me as well :)
 
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