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Question:

March 18, 2022

Newly hatched cockatiel chicks diet, nutrition and care


I have a male and female cockatiel. 3 eggs were laid almost 3 weeks ago. And one has hatched right now. The diet of the parent cockatiels are mainly millets and seeds. They don’t enjoy fruits or vegetables much. The male cockatiel is not friendly with us but took care of the eggs most than the female. My questions are 1) how will I know the parents are feeding the chick 2) will the parents feed the chick with the diet they have right now and what are they feeding it? 3) what additional care or nutrition should I provide to both the chick and the parents?


Answer:

Hi Naira,

I’ll start with a short lecture – these are all things you should have learned about before allowing the birds to breed. There are no accidental chicks like with a dog or cat if it gets pregnant. Eggs can be discarded without ever allowing them to start developing.

That being said, the seed offers little nutrition and unless you give a vitamin supplement, the parents are malnourished even if they appear healthy on the outside. Even with a vitamin supplement, a seed diet is not adequate for pet birds. They should be eating a nutritionally balanced diet like pellets or our foraging diets. In addition they need dark leafy greens, chopped veggies and some fruit. Breeders should be fed an egg food from the time you hang the nest box until the chicks are weaned. This can be a commercial egg food, or a cooked egg with the shell washed, crushed and cooked with the egg. Birds should not be set up for breeding unless they are already on this type of diet.

While it’s too late to change their diet while they have chicks, you can add all of the foods I mentioned above. Most birds will eat foods they never touched before when they have chicks to feed. Since this is their first clutch, it is highly likely they won’t feed the chick and it won’t survive. It’s also possible they will stuff it with seeds, and that often causes an impacted crop and the chick dies. If they do manage to raise the chick, then as soon as it leaves the nest box, take the box down and rest the parents for at least 6 months. During this time, they need to learn to eat better and you need to get them entirely off the seed mix before you let them breed again. A breeding pair should be rested for 6 months between every clutch, whether they hatch chicks or not.

You are not alone in these mistakes. A lot of owners don’t understand the importance of good nutrition and the complete lack of nutrition in loosed seed mixes. Cockatiels can be hard to convert to pellets, but all birds can learn to eat a good diet – the owners usually give up too soon. We do make foraging diets that contain whole seeds, and cockatiels convert easily to these. They have the same nutrition as pellets but are not ground up. The difference in the seeds in these diets is they have the hulls removed, and each seed is coated with the vitamins and nutrition the birds need. This can’t be done with loose seeds because any added vitamins are lost when the bird removes the hulls.

Even with ideal nutrition, most first clutches fail, so try not to feel too bad. Focus on getting the parents on a good diet so you can let them breed again in the future and have a better chance of raising healthy chicks.

Bird Food Guide

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda

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