February 2, 2023
Cockatiel one egg
My cockatiel laid one egg and she is a new for eggs and she doesn’t sit on it? What do I do?
Question:
Answer:
Hi,
It depends on whether the bird has a mate and if you are trying to breed them. If this is a single bird, you can throw the egg away because it can’t be fertile. She will probably lay at least 4 eggs with a day in between each egg. If this is a breeding pair, did she lay the egg in the nest box? Are both birds at least 2 years old? If they are under 2, they should not be paired yet or have a nest box as they are too young still. If they are over two, they will be learning with this clutch. Sometimes they do not start to sit on the eggs until she has laid more than one. Usually one parent sits during the day and the other sits during the night. But just know that most first clutches fail because the parents make mistakes. Just let them make mistakes, as they will learn from them and probably do better next time. But act as if all will go well. Make sure they are eating a nutritionally balanced diet such as pellets and not a seed mix. Also offer leafy greens, chopped veggies and some fruit. Start feeding them an egg food daily. This can be a cooked egg with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the egg or buy a commercial dry egg food. They need to get used to eating a variety of foods so if the chicks do hatch, they are feeding them well. If you only feed seeds, they are not getting much in the way of nutrition and they tend to pack the chicks so full of seed, their crop gets impacted. Give them plenty of privacy and hope for the best!
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
