Hi Samuel,
When a pair is nesting, they do not want to soil the nest box. They will hold their droppings for hours, sometimes all day or all night, and then come out of the box and do a large poop that often has a strong odor. With cockatiels, generally one bird will sit on the eggs during the day and the other sits at night. If this is their first time nesting, they are still learning and tend to make mistakes. Most first clutches fail, so try not to be too disappointed if this happens. If both are sitting on the eggs at the same time, then their eating habits will be different. They will typically leave the box for a short time and eat a lot at once. It’s important that they are eating a nutritionally balanced diet such as pellets or our foraging diets. A loose seed mix will not provide the nutrition they need. You should also offer chopped veggies & dark leafy greens. And while they are set up for breeding like they are now, you should offer an egg food. This can be a commercial egg food or you can cook an egg with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the egg. Offer this daily – it replenishes the protein and calcium the female lost when forming each egg, and she will feed some of this to the chicks if the eggs hatch.
If you feel the parents are not eating or they are sick, then you should take them to an Avian Vet as soon as possible.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
