Ask Lafeber

Cockatoo

My cockatoo has 9 eggs for mores than 3 weeks and it’s hasn’t hatched what it happened

Hi Carmen,

Do you have a Cockatoo or a Cockatiel? I’m asking because 9 eggs is more than usual for a Cockatiel, but it is a LOT of eggs for a Cockatoo. A Cockatoo will generally lay 2 or 3 eggs. Do you have a male bird? If you only have one bird, the eggs will not be fertile and will not hatch. If you have 2 birds, it is possible you have two females since there are so many eggs. Most clutches fail because the parents make mistakes. With Cockatiels, one bird sits on the eggs during the day and the other sits on the eggs at night. Also, the incubation period is for each egg – since eggs are laid one day apart, the last egg will hatch a week or more later than the first egg. If you do have a male & female, you should not do anything with the eggs until about 25 days after the LAST egg was laid. If you look through the past questions here, you will find a lot of them are about cockatiel breeding and you should find the information helpful.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda