at what age does a cockateil start laying eggs and what do i do when she does?

Answer 1

Cockatiels CAN lay eggs at 6 months or so, but you do not WANT them to lay eggs until they are at least 18 months old. Just as you would not encourage people to have babies too young. It is bad for their health.

The female who presents you with unwanted eggs can and SHOULD be stopped. In order to come into breeding condition, cockatiels and most other birds need two things: sufficient food and long hours of daylight. Needless to say you wouldn't want to reduce her food intake, but you can reduce her daylight. You don't need to cover her cage, though you can if you want. If you have a big enough cage that covering is impractical, put her in a room where you can close the curtain or window shades to bring on "evening". I kept my birds in a dark room where I had to turn on lights in order to give them proper daylight. I used full spectrum lights. I turned off the lights in two stages, so they would have time to settle in for the "night" before turning off the last light. They would all wake and sleep according to the schedule I set for them.

OK. So what happens if you WANT them to lay eggs? First of all do some REAL research. Go to the National Cockatiel Society (www.cockatiels.org) or American Cockatiel Society (www.acstiels.org) for articles that can help. Don't just rely on listening to any old Joe on Yahoo. Many of the answers you've already received are just plain wrong. There are usually a couple of decent cockatiel book in most libraries. You should also consider joining a bird club to meet other people with expertise. You'll probably have questions at some point.

Plan on spending a fair bit of money in order to get huge cages, wooden nestboxes, and other needed supplies for your birds. Make sure your birds are healthy and are getting a protein- and calcium-rich diet well before they begin breeding. Your hen can become seriously depleted when she lays and even more so when feeding babies.

Make a plan now for how you will handle things like vet emergancies, and what do to if the parents fail to feed the babies, or try to kill them or throw them out of the nest. Things happen when you breed. (I had a normally sweet male who would become murderous towards his mate and chicks unless he had total freedom to fly around the bird room. If he could increase his territory, he was the perfect mate.)

If you decide to breed, you have two choices. Let the parents do their thing (as long as they are good parents), or take the babies when young and handfeed. I used to take the babies at two weeks, long enough to give them a good headstart, then handfeed until they were weaned. This made very friendly babies, but was physically exhausting. Every day before I got to shower or eat myself, I had to get up two hours early and feed babies. Every night, the last thing before bed was feed the babies. I had to take the chicks to work and feed on my lunch and fifteen minute breaks. It was also very messy and the handfeeding formula I used was kinda gross. Of course they loved it. You need to know what you are doing though, because if you get the formula too cold the babies won't digest it; too hot and you will burn their crop. Put it down the wrong pipe and you'll kill them outright. Let the babies get chilly and they die. Mistakes can kill your babies. Handfeeding is a HUGE responsibility. It does raise the value of the babies, but remember that even expensive, rare varieties of cockatiels are very reasonably priced. You won't make a fortune raising cockatiels even if you do handfeed the babies. If you want to make money, get a job instead.

Finally have a plan for what you are going to do with the babies. What happens if you have trouble selling them?

My best advice is research thoroughly first. Make plans. Ask advice FROM PEOPLE THAT KNOW, and then consider breeding.

One practical warning though. If you regularly let your cockatiels out to fly around the room or ride on your shoulder, know this: When they are breeding and raising babies, cockatiel dropping GREATLY increase in size and runny consistency. Not real fun down the back of your shirt as you are heading out the door...

Good luck.

Answer 2

A female cockateil can lay eggs at 2-3 years. Even if she is alone without a mate she can still lay eggs, they just aren't fertile. If she lays these eggs just keep them on a shelf for show. If the eggs are fertile, she will hatch them herself.

Answer 3

They will usually start to lay after 6 mos. Nothing to do but let her lay. If there is male present, you may want to get ready for a some baby birds. We have a female and she lays all the time. She has 6 eggs that she is sitting on now. Just keeps her happy I guess. They are blanks!!!

Answer 4

Female Tiels can start laying egg when they are as young as 15 months. If she does not have a mate just throw away the eggs they won't be any good. Don't let her over lay too many eggs, make sure you have extra calicum in her diet.



Sapphyre
Certified Avian Specialist
http://www.borrowed-rainbow.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BorrowedRainbowAviary/

Answer 5

If unfertilized, just throw them out after a couple days. The first day she lays them she will be really attentive to it but will start to lose interest pretty quickly. Make sure you keep cuttlebone in her cage. They use a good bit of calcium in producing eggs. My cockatiel has produced as many as three at a time, about a day apart.

Answer 6

All cockateils are different. If she has no mate, just take the egg and throw it away. If she does have a mate--let nature take it's course.

Answer 7

If the female was not with a male the eggs have not been fertilized so the eggs would be no good so what u would do with them is throw them away.Srry

Answer 8

If all you have is a female cockatiel, don't worry about eggs. You do know about the birds and the bees, don't you?

Answer 9

Is there a male cockatiel involved?
Check out the link...

Answer 10

You can have a good fry up,,?