Ask Lafeber

Cockatiel breeding question

Female cockatiel will not sit on eggs for long and male cockatiel tries to make her stay My mom has a male and female at some point she had 2 females and one male in same cage. after 6-8 months one of the females died and we were left with only 1 female and 2 male, male had always tried breeding with both but none will stay in nest. Male had gotten to the point where he attacks the female we have separated them for 5-7 days but both get very sad and won’t eat, we have to place them back together and they are happy and try to re breed but female will not stay laying down in eggs, both eat fruits, cockatiel bird food, have a wood box, cage is high up. Not sure what to do

Hi Jimena,

I’m not sure by your explanation if you still have 3 birds in the cage together? If so, this is your main issue. It is never a good idea to have an odd number of birds in a cage because one bird gets let out and picked on. And it creates a very confusing situation for breeding birds since a third bird is viewed as a rival. So if you do still have three birds together, you first need to remove the extra bird to another cage.

I think right now the best thing to do is to remove the nest box and let the pair rest. They need to bond better and both birds need to be ready for breeding. If they are fighting, they aren’t going to have success breeding. If they form a better bond, stop any fighting, and start to mate with each other, that would be the time to give the nest box back to them. Hopefully the female will show more interest and go into the box. However, keep in mind that some birds do not make good breeders. You can have everything set up perfectly and still have no success with the birds.

Once they are set up again, give them plenty of privacy and hope for the best. If they still don’t settle down, then this pair probably isn’t going to be a good breeding pair. In that case you would remove the nest box permanently because only breeding birds need a nest.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda