My cockatiels are almost 2 years old, is this an ideal age to breed?

Question

I have 1 male and 2 females (unrelated) in the same cage. They all get along wonderfully and he mates with both females. If I put a nestbox in the cage (which is huge and plenty big), will he probably pick one of the females to pair off with and breed? If I don't get any babies, I'd like to get another bird. Could I add a parakeet? If I add another male Cockatiel, could this cause problems? I was hoping to have 2 pairs of Cockatiels. Also, the male is whitefaced cinnamon. If he breeds with the Lutino female, what colors could the babies be and if he breeds withe the whitefaced pied (almost totally white), what colors could the babies be? Is it possible that he could get them both pregnant and they could both hatch eggs (the nestbox is large)? And he does help take care of the eggs, right? Sorry about all the questions. Any info. on any of my questions is appreciated. I have done tons of research but still have many questions. THANKS.

Answer 1

http://www.kirstenmunson.com/cockatiels/blue.html

There is an excellent site on determining probability of colors. All you do is pick what your bird is and it gives you a percentages of colors for both your male and female chicks.

As for breeding, the male does help take care of the eggs, and there is no way he could take care of both nests. The male usually sits on the egg during the day and the female at night. They both feed the babies. 2 females will not lay and brood a clutch in the same nest box- they will get territorial and try to kill each other. Plus it is probably not big enough. It may seem like it now, but add 4-5 almost full grown chicks per female and they won't fit.
With one male to 2 females, you will end up with either very weak chicks all around, no chicks at all, or a bunch of dead chicks as one mother kills the other chicks (she wants hers to have more food than the other females).
Plus the male is inexperienced and may just abandon or kill the chicks all together, and may not lay on the eggs.
2 yrs old is fine, but please take out one of the females. You will not be able to add another male unless it is a very large cage. If you do decide to add one, make sure you take out the male they are bonded to until they get used to the new guy. What will probably happen if you put all 4 in the same cage is that they will still mate with the 1st male and beat up or ignore the second.
As for color combinations: This is IF there are no hidden genes on the male (say pied, pearled, etc). You have no way of telling this unless you know his parents or until after he has chicks.
WF cin male x lutino female: ( I am assuming the lutino is a normal face since you didnt say WF)
male: 100% gray split to WF and female: cin. split to WF (none will show WF

WF cin male with WF pied female:
male 100% WF grey split to pied female: 100% WF cin split to pied.

As for the parakeet- they are agressive and would harm the cocktiels, unless all of them ganged up on it and killed it.
The only way you could add is with a room sized aviary where they could escape.

Answer 2

Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Except for adding another male, that shouldn't cause problems but it depends on the birds. If you add a parakeet, you may want to add at least two if not three. Just a note of a possible problem: bigger birds pick on smaller birds ("pecking order" is a reality)' it's a dominence/territorial thing. Their cage should be large if you want to house them all together ( 6 ftL x 4 ftW x 3 ftH). Have a plan as to what you will do with the babies.

Answer 3

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