cockatiel breeding behaviour

Hi I'm new to this forum but I have a bit of an unusual question to post.

I have a male and female breeding pair of cockatiels the male was aivary raised and not really accepting of human contact and the female is handraised and loves humans. I have sucessfully breed these birds once with no problems but when it came to the last breeding attempt they laid 5 egges, 4 hatched and 2 died in the nest. I found the 2 dead on their back and suffocated on the nesting material. A few days later i found one of the remaining babies on its back. After careful observation it appeared that the male was flipping the baby on its back while getting out of the nest (not sure if its intentional or not). I ended up removing the 2 remaining babies at 2 wks rather than the 3wks I prefer for hand raising. They have thrived and are absolute sooks, craving human attention.

Has anyone heard of this happening? Any ideas on how to stop this from happening the next time? I would rather leave them in for 3 weeks before hand raising them as they seem to require less monitioring and have a better survival rate.

Mel.

 

Hi and welcome to the forum....

I breed cockatiels and this is happens alot if either of the parents gets spooked by something they will jump from the nest not meaning to catch the chick in the process..

Are these birds bred indoors away from other birds and animals...

I find the most succesful way to breed and raise the chicks without any problems is to put the breeding cage in a room that is quiet and away from alot of human traffic this way they are at ease and don't have to worry about anything interfering with the nest and the chicks.

I check on my chicks twice a day while i am changing water and food for the parents all the time talking even if the birds are in the nest i wait for them to come out of the nest before i look in this way the chances of them stepping on the chicks is reduced...

If this keeps happening then i would remove the male to a seperate cage and let mum get on with it a female can raise a clutch of 5 chicks by herself without any problems some can raise more...

How old are the parents and how long between clutches do you allow the hen to rest up???

Mike

 

Hi Mike,

The birds are house inside in the loungeoom as I live in a 2 bedroom unit the only other option is to move them into my bed room. I have no other animals and my housemate dosent have any interaction with the birds other than changing the seed and water if I am away. One of the occasions that I noticed the male had 'tipped' one of the young I was watching tv on the couch and heard the feeding chirps and glanced over to see who was feeding, as the male has on both occasions taken the bulk of the hatching and feeding duties. When he left the nestbox I heard distressed noises from inside the box which was when I checked the babies and found the youngest on its back. That was the point when I removed that baby, warmed it up and fed it. About an hour later the same thing happened to the remaining baby. I removed the remaning baby as I had already lost 2 (possibly to the same problem).

I have only bred the birds twice now, once at the end of summer and again in spring. The female is a handraised 2 and 1/2 yr old and I am unsure of the age of the male but he is atleast 2yrs old and avairy raised. Iam not willing to seperate them as when they are exercising around the house if they are not close to eachother he tends to fret and willnot quieten untill reunited with the female. I only thing that i can think that has been diferent was I changed the nesting material the day before this all happened and I may not have filled the nesting box with enough nesting material making it difficlt for him to exit the box and possibly accidently tipping the babies over. Both parents refuse to use the hole in the side of the box and enter and exit though the top of the box.

 

Sounds like everything is fine.
When the parents are feeding they usually in that much of a hurry to go get more food and the chicks are determined the parents are not leaving they usually get knocked over this is normal and aslong as you notice a chick on its back and turn it back round there should be no problems.

Nest boxes for cockatiels need 2-3inches of plain woodshavings packed down.
You seem to know what your doing and you are aware of the different calls the chicks have which is great not many people can tell the difference

Mike