Ask Lafeber

My cocktail had laid one egg

The female and male stay in the nesting box they only come out to eat . How many eggs will they have? What do I do and not do ?

Hi Eliz,

Hopefully your female is at least 2 years old and the male is at least 18 months old. They are capable of breeding at a younger age, but it isn’t a good idea – young females are at a higher risk of getting egg bound and dying, and young males tend to only want to mate and aren’t ready to settle down and actually care for the eggs and chicks. Both the male and female take turns sitting on the eggs – usually one sits during the day and the other sits at night. So your pair is still learning, with both parents staying in the box right now.

She may lay anywhere from 4-8 eggs, every other day. They take about 18-21 days to hatch, depending on when she begins to sit on them, and they hatch as they were laid – every other day. So the last egg will hatch a week or more later than the first. The parents should be eating a nutritionally balanced diet such as pellets or our foraging diets. You should also give them dark leafy greens and chopped veggies. Right now while they are breeding & laying eggs, you need to add multi grain bread and cooked eggs, with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the eggs. The female needs this extra protein and calcium while laying eggs and feeding chicks. Once the chicks are weaned, you stop feeding the eggs until it is time to get them ready to breed again, after a 6 month rest.

In the wild, cockatiels only breed one time a year during the breeding season. This is when days are longer, weather is warmer, food is abundant and they have a safe place to nest. In captivity, we provide the perfect conditions year round, so cockatiels will breed year round, but you should not allow them to. You should limit a pair to two clutches per year, by removing the nest box when the chicks leave it or when the eggs are past due, and not putting it back up for 6 months. This makes the pair rest and keeps them from over breeding. If a hen is allowed to breed and lay eggs over and over without a break, it is a strain on her health and she can eventually die from over breeding.

The breeding cage should be in a quiet part of the house where the pair doesn’t see people all day. You should give them plenty of privacy and only go near them to check on them or feed them. If you are around them too much it can make them nervous and not want to sit on the eggs or care for the chicks.

You need a lot of patience to breed birds and you should be prepared for disappointments. The first clutch almost always fails, and sometimes it can take 2 or 3 times for a pair to get everything right. Regardless of whether the eggs hatch, the pair should still be rested for 6 months between clutches. During this time, the cage can be moved to a busy place in the house so the pair will not want to breed again too soon.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda