I have a pair of cockatiels and she has laid her first egg. I was unaware that she was pregnant. She laid it on the bottom of the cage and now she want sit on it. What do I do I don't want it to die?:eek:


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First, you need to make sure your cage is large enough for the mother bird to nest. You should also provide a nesting box for her. With LARGE wood shavings, or shredded paper. You should then probably get some gloves and move the egg carefully to the nest. Do not bother the egg anymore after this. The mother will set on the egg, she will not break it, and if she does, that is just nature, not much you can do. Good luck!

It might not even be a fertilized egg, so don't be to upset if it doesn't hatch. Charlotte's advice is great, now you just have to sit back and wait. You should pick up a vitamin supplement for your bird, she will need it now that she is laying eggs, it takes allot out of their system.

The eggs as said may not be fertile, so please don't get your hopes up on it...

You would not have been aware the bird was pregnant because it only takes 2 days for the egg to be made and laid, basically after copulation occurs it takes 10 days for the body to sort everything out, and start the egg production, on the 8th day production of the egg would start and on the 10th day it will be laid, so technically a bird doesn't get fat like we do when we are pregnant or about to give birth, however if inspected closely and once you get used to signs and symptoms you can roughly guess when a bird is going to lay, the vent (bit where it poops from underneith, will get swollen, and the poop a couple of days before the egg is due to be laid may also go solid and completely white like a chunk of chalk, also just after or on the day an egg is to be laid you may find that the poop may get really brown/black and smell like hell, this is normal...

You should expect 1 egg to be laid every 2 days and the mother may not start to sit on the eggs until she has laid a minimum of 2 eggs but usually 3 , after she has started sitting on the eggs properly it takes 18 to 21 days before the first eggs hatch, usually you get a couple hatch togather and then the rest hatch every couple o days,. the hen will probibly lay 3 to 5 eggs however it is not unusual for them to lay more than 5 eggs,.

I have found however that usually when an egg is laid on the floor of the cage most of the time they will not sit on them, your best bet is to buy a nestbox from the store and add it to the cage if the cage is big enough, eggs laid on the floor of the cage are liable to bacterial contamination and you have no way of keeping the clean if she is sitting eggs on the floor,
I would add the nestbox to the cage and when you have seen her going into the nestbox and spending a bit of time in it you should then add the egg, this will encourage her to lay the rest their, however she may reject that 1 egg anyway and start laying more,

Once the nestbox is in and the egg is in place leave them alone apart from food and water,

If the eggs hatch (check nestbox at around 21 days or listen for the crys of the birds or signs of eggshell outside of the nestbox, ) you will then need to feed a rearing food called eggfood, this will give the birds and chicks a good diet and help them with the rearing,
If you feed eggfood before she has finished laying until the chicks hatch the cock bird may get aggressive as he may want to mate again and the hen won't be ready, this will also endanger the hen and any eggs or chicks,. buy some liquid calcium if you can and follow the instructions for egg laying birds, do not get it wrong as if you do it can make the eggs shells to thick and your bird could possibly get eggbound (means it can't pass the egg out of the canal) and if it is passed then the chick may not be able to hatch out of the shell as it will be to thick for the chick to break ,

Please keep us updated on how they get on but usually even first time parent cockatiels make great parents

Good luck with them :)
Need any help or want any advice ask away and I will do my best to help you :)
Katie

Oh and also a warning sign to look for is the bird refusing to sit on a perch or walk about much and her back end slowly lifting and down, if the bird does this for half a day then she is probibly eggbound, which can be potentially dangerous, not going to worry you too much but it is a common thing with tiels, if this happens warm her up , put a heater or a lamp over her cage and surround the cage on three sides with towels to keep the heat in, this will help her pass the egg, the warmer the better but around 35 degree Celsius usually does the trick, do not exeed 37.5 degree Celsius as a temperature... if she hasn't passed the egg within a day you need to get her to the vet, not going to go into all the ins and out of things that can occur, just wanted to help you in case she does get this symptom,.

If however she does get eggbound then please email me on [email protected] and I will get into touch with you asap, the sooner you spot the signs the better her chances are! If I don't reply to you within a few hours then make yourself a member of UK Birdkeepers Message Board (Powered by Invision Power Board) and start a post in beginners section , call the post mrssittingduck.. then a member their when they spot the post will ring me up and get me to come online to help ;)
Just don't fuss about the cage for long periods as the birds need peace, quiet and stress free, just keep a watchful eye without interfering with them :)
Really do wish you the best of luck with them,
Regards
Katie

I had cockatiels and they would lay eggs in the Wooden nesting box I provided for them. I had a white who laid eggs like a chicken. Hers would hatch. So I had lots of little birdies. They had their own bedroom and a huge home built cage. I put a plexiglass lid on the nesting boxes so I could look at the little ones. I had 3 pairs of nesting tiels. Usually white ones don't lay eggs in captivity I was told - well don't tell that one I had as she out laid everyone else.

Also, a little trick I found to increase my bird's egg production. Give them a hard boiled egg - shell and all. I would just cut the egg in half and place on the floor. I would take the uneaten portion of the egg out every day and put a fresh one in it's place. It was amazing just how much they loved real hard boiled hen's eggs to snack on. I always treated my birds to hard boiled eggs. I never had to add a calcium supplement or anything else as the egg did the trick with the needed calcium.

The next best thing is to have the birds off in a quiet room all by themselves or in a quiet corner. When they are nesting they don't like a lot of rumpus. Also, the less you bother them the better. Looking is OK and cage cleaning is OK but keep that to a minimum.

I agree with twinkiedooter,
My birds have boiled eggs ,shells and all, however I do take off the shells and bake them for 5 minutes in the over gas mark 5 or 6 before hand, this gets rid of any potential nasties on the shell,
A good scource of calcium for them, however with your birds laying already a liquid calcium suppliment would be needed as the calcium from the egg and shells won't be able to be absorbed into the body at a quick enough or big enough rate to help her with her shells just yet... will take a while to get into her system properly...

I do plan on breeding my own white faced lutino, cockatiels again soon, just got to find a definite pair... they as twinkiedooter already knows lay just as good as the rest of the tiel mutations,
At one point it was thought that they were sterile and couldn't lay , however this is because people considered them to be true albinos and 2 albinos togather can not reproduce (not as of yet as far as I know anyway)
The all white cockatiel is not however a true albino, it is what is known as either a black eyed clear or a white faced lutino... the coloration itself is achieved by breeding a white faced bird with a lutino bird.. . as you can guess , these birds have black eyes ad not red,
If you were to get a pure white bird with a red eye, this would basically be an accident from the genes of the bird... these birds can also have poor vision in comparison to the normal birds, not sure why they get poor vision but it is something to do with the genetics and filtration of light in the eye...