Ask Lafeber

Preventing egg laying in a female cockatiel

Hello. I have couple of questions that you might be able to answer for me since most avian forums are dead it seems. I have an older female cockatiel that a elderly woman decided she didn’t want anymore. I had her about 5 years now but only until two to three years ago she started laying eggs.
The woman kinda push her onto me before I could even find out where an avain vet was the closes to me ( none are very close it seems..) I’m kinda at my wits end having anxiety over her laying eggs because i’m scared of egg problems. She doesn’t eat pellets. I tried over the years to introduce them to her. She doesn’t eat fruits or veggies, I tried introducing them to her. She doesn’t play with toys to distract her from her hormones, I even tried showing her how to play with them! So all she wants to do is wanting to mate by doing the little dance she does and it triggers me when she does it cause I know whats bout to go down.
I put her to bed super early (when she’s non hormonal she preferred going to bed early anyway.) She is darkness for over 14 hour for the last couple of days but her hormones wont stop raging. It even escalated to her shredding paper and large poops now. I cant exactly move her to a totally quiet and dark place because she has to go to bed early so I put her in my grandpas room to go to bed, but then he goes in there and watches tv before he goes to bed and occasionally turns on the light so he can see. Im guessing now she sees her cage like a nest box or something? She has a dark kinda weighty cover over her cage but I leave one side at the bottom free so she can breathe.
I apologize for a very long message. I love birds so much but I guess female birds don’t mix well with my anxiety problems. She is a good girl when she isn’t hormonal. I guess my questions are what do I do or not do when she does her mating dance? Does giving her a shower distracts her or makes her thinks it is springtime which = hormones? I never know when It is a good time to give her a bath. Any advice at all of what I should do? Right now she constantly screams when I leave the room.

Hi Stephanie,

One thing I would do is not use paper in her cage. If there is not a metal grate on the cage floor, then any kind of bedding can encourage nesting. But shredding paper definitely can be a trigger. Even if you have to use nothing and just clean the tray daily, this is better than her having access to anything to shred or nest in. If you are covering her when you put her to bed, this is good and activity around her is not a problem – exposure to light is the trigger, not being awake.

Do you handle her? If so, limit any petting to her head only. And do not handle her when she is doing her dance or acting hormonal. The best thing to do is ignore her when she does this. Cockatiels really do not need baths because they have a powder that protects their feathers. It sounds like she is very bonded to you, so unfortunately you may need to limit the contact you have with her when she starts acting hormonal. You can also try relocating her cage about once a week.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda