Ask Lafeber

Breeding

cHello Brenda,

I had a Pair of Cockatiels since last 7 months. They are Old enough to breed more then One year older.
They tried mating lots of time but they did’nt alable to make their Breed.
many peoples asked me to change the male cockatiel and try breeding again.

So I have changed my male Cockatiel and brought a new Male for my old female Cockatiel.

with in a week they started mating (new male and old female Cockatiels).
after 8 days of 1st mating I saw an egg laid and I was so Happy.

My problem is, Most of the time my female stays inside the nest box and don’t allow male to come inside the nest box she start bitting him runnimg behind him and male dont fights with her.

and some times i see both are inside for a long time. this is going since they started mating, like before a few days of 1st egg laid.

Is it normal that she fights with a male or it is dangerous for them and for the eggs ?

And I hear sound of egg moving from inside the nest box. is that also normal for them ?

How many eggs they lay in ome clutch ?
and how to make their eggs fertile ?

Thank you

Hi Abdullah,

It is OK to make a change like you did, but you didn’t give the birds time to truly bond before you gave them a nest box. I think this is probably the cause of some of the aggression. But it is not unusual for the female to act this way, or sometimes it is the male who bullies the female. If the other male is still around and she  can hear him, this may be part of the problem. as I have said before all you can do is have them fed well and provided with what they need and hopefully they will get things right. The birds will turn the eggs in the box – this is necessary. She will lay an egg every other day and typically lay 4 – 6 eggs total. There is nothing you can do to make them fertile. Even if they are, the first clutch generally fails due to improper incubation or damage to the eggs or failure to feed the chicks if they do hatch. You will have to wait and see what happens. But if the fighting gets bad, such as blood being drawn, you will have to spear ate the birds.

Than you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda