Ask Lafeber

baby chicks

hello my name is malak and I’m a 14 year old beginner in raising birds. so i own 2 cockatiels. a male and female. i have owned them for a few months but the dont like me much. the male just flew out of the cage today and didn’t come back. its highly that he wont come back because he hates staying in his cage that’s first and secondly i live in a very high apartment complex so I’m 100% sure he wont come back. now my female cockatiel is still in the box with 3 eggs that have been laid a few weeks ago and are supposed to hatch next Thursday i have no idea what im supposed to do or feed while they hatch. my questions are:1) what am i supposed to provide my bird while she is taking care of the chicks. 2) what diet am i supposed to give her in order for the chicks to survive. 3) is it OK if i get a different male cockatiel now or should i wait for a few weeks until the chicks grow up. and lastly 4) should i keep them outside in the hot weather or am i supposed to take them inside for the time being. p.s ( the weather I’m in can reach up to 40 degrees celesius)

Hi,

It is unfortunate that the male flew away. The female may not continue to care for the eggs. Usually one bird sits during the day, and the other sits at night. Both parents help feed the chicks. If the eggs hatch, the chicks may not survive. It’s really too much work for one parent.

You should already be feeding them a nutritionally balanced diet like pellets – not a seed diet. Also offer leafy greens, veggies & some fruit. They also need an egg food – either a dry commercial egg food or cook an egg with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the eggs.

Do not try to introduce a male right now. She would not accept it and may even kill it. And he might raid the nest and destroy the eggs or kill any chicks. If the eggs hatch and the chicks survive, you need to remove the nest box as soon as they leave it. Once the chicks have been weaned, they should be moved to a different cage. Later you can consider trying to introduce a new male. But you can’t just put one in the cage. He would need to be in his own cage, next to her cage, while they get used to each other. She may or may not like him and vice versa. They choose their own mate in the wild and do not always like the bird we choose.

As for temperature, once the temperature is about 26 Celsius, it is too hot for breeding birds outdoors. You have to understand that the nest box is considerably hotter, especially if any chicks hatch. The adults and chicks will die from heat inside the nest box. If they are outside now, and it is 26 or higher, I would bring them inside. Most likely the hen will abandon the eggs, but she probably won’t hatch them anyway without the male, and again, the chicks are likely to die because she won’t be able to keep herself and them fed by herself. And lastly, if the box is too hot, they will all die. It is better to save the female than risk her life for the remote possibility of these eggs hatching or the chicks surviving. I’m sorry for the likely sad outcomes here, but you have to make hard decisions sometimes when breeding birds. And you don’t know that the eggs are even fertile, so you don’t want your hen to die for infertile eggs.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda