What's going on with my cockatiel??? Help!!

My cockatiel was laying eggs, so, kind of on a whim we got her a nesting box, where she promptly laid 3 eggs. Over the space of several weeks, she laid an additional four eggs, quite spread out. The first 3 hatched over the past week and seemed to be doing quite well. This morning when I peeked in the nesting box, the mother had blood all over her beak. The three babies were alive, but 3 of the 4 eggs were gone. It was quite obvious she had eaten them, shell and all. I'm trying to figure out if this was some instinctual thing since the eggs were laid over such a long period of time and she sensed there would be difficulties raising the group with such a disparity in ages. Or- is there some other answer? I'm guessing that the remaining egg is the closest to hatching and maybe she sensed that and destroyed the less developed ones?
The other thing is that the abdomen of the oldest chick seems quite distended to me.
Does anyone have any advice/explanations?

 

Hi, Cockatiels like most birds usually lay 1 egg every 2days, with a clutch size of 4-6 some have more some have less.

Incubation is 19-21days incubation does not start until the 2nd or 3rd egg has been laid.

For you female to eat her eggs this indicates she has a calcium and iron deficiency and she knows she can replace some of it byy eating her eggs...

As for the chick having a distended abdomen this is normal as the chicks get older the abdomen will enlarge, the crop which is the part of the chest close to the abdomen is usually very swollen after each feed and you can make out the crop milk that the parents have been feeding them..

There should be mineral block and cuttlefish bone in her cage at all times and she should be on a good quality seed, She should also be on soft foods such as boiled brown rice, boiled pasta, boiled eggs crushed up with the shell, Fresh fruit and veg, Also you can feed an egg food called EMP or CeDe this is used for handfeeding and weaning chicks but can be given at any time to help keep the parents and her chicks in top condition.

If she is an excessive egg layer where she always has eggs in her nest and not sitting them completely, Then you need to remove the nest and the male and not breed from her again as this problem will pass on to her offspring..

Mike

 

Thanks for your response...

We have always provided a cuttle bone and a varied diet with a lot of greens and veggies and fruits, and have been mixing in the Kaytee Nestling food but I will add boiled egg to the regimen. The other thing that is going on is that the father is not helping at all. We aren't seeing her leave the nest for more than 10 minutes a day and are wondering what the dynamics are. Could she merely be trying to meet her nutritional needs inside the nest because for some reason the father is not assisting or maybe he poses some kind of threat?

 

Ack!!! Addendum!!! The plot thickens...

Yesterday there were 3 chicks and one egg in the nest. Today there are three chicks and three eggs. How could this have happened??? What do I do? That makes about 10 eggs that she's laid in the past month!

 

How old are both parents?

Your female is what is known as an excessive egg layer which will cause her problems, As the more eggs she is laying the higher the risk of a serious calcium problem resulting in egg binding and worse death.

How many days have the new eggs been in the nest if only over the past 2-3 days i suggest you remove the eggs boil them allow them to cool mark them with a number and place them back in the nest this way these eggs wont form and you wont have to worry about her becoming ill from trying to raise 2 set of different age chicks, Plus the the new chicks that hatch wont survive as the older ones will crush them and stop them from being fed...

Some young male cockatiels dont know what to do, The male usually takes over during the day while the female is out of the nest and the female resumes her role late afternoon.

With my cockatiels when my females leave the nest the males go in and they sit with the chicks and feed them while the female is relieving herself and having something to eat and drink, Also with my males they take food to the females while they are in the nest, Most of the time both my parents are in the nest at the same time....

Once these chicks leave the nest at around 5 weeks remove the nestbox and any eggs she lays on the cage floor boil mark with a number and give her them back once cool. This usually is enough to stop her laying anymore eggs if that fails reduce the amount of light they get per day aswell as reducing the room temp this will trick them into thinking its winter and they usually stop laying...

Mike

 

If she ate her eggs , that means tat she had a lack of calcium .