I documented our cockatiels from the egg to full grown.

We have a pair of cockatiels that have mated. I have documented the whole experience except for a few days due to a computer crash which caused me to lose some of the pictures.

In our experience breeding the cockatiels has been extremely easy. The parents have done all of the work.

We provided them with a cockatiel nesting box that opened from the back. This allowed us to monitor the eggs and the chicks. We lined the nesting box with carefresh pet bedding.

Our female laid a total of four eggs. Each egg was laid about two days apart.
The cockatiel pair began incubating the eggs immediately. The male would sit on them all day. The female would sit on them all night while the male guarded the outside of the box
AND HE GAURDED it well. If you came anywhere near the box he would lunge at you!

During this whole experience we provided our birds with a variety of foods.
Our birds were raised on seeds so changing their diet could be problematic. We introduced new foods in a separate bowl. We provided them with a bowl full of seeds, a small bowl full of nesting food and a small bowl full of pellets and believe it or not plain old cheerios. They ate those cheerios like they were going out of style.
It is also important to provide a cuddle bone for the female. She will need the extra calcium it provides in order to create the eggs.

It is important to monitor the eggs and make sure they are fertile. Click here to see an article about candling eggs.

Of the four eggs that ours laid all were fertile but only three hatched. The babies were well fed by the parents.
Baby birds have a crop. A crop is a pouch that holds the food before going into the stomach. At any given time you could peek in and see that the young babies had full crops. It was very obvious.

The young birds about doubled in size from day 1 to day 2. Look at the pictures below to see the growth from eggs to full grown. From the time they hatched to the last picture was about four weeks.

Day 1 – 1 Baby 3 Eggs

Day 2

Day 3 – 2 Babies

Day 4

Day 5 Three babies

Baby cockatiels about 1 week old

Baby cockatiels about a week and a half old

Baby cockatiels 2 weeks old

Baby cockatiels all grown up!

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What is candling an egg?

Simply put candling an egg is applying light to the side of an egg to see what’s inside. It’s kind of like peeking at your Christmas presents before Christmas……………. Well actually it’s nothing like that.

In order to determine if the eggs laid are fertile, you must ” candle ” them. This is a very easy process but care must be taken not to shake or jolt the eggs, this can kill the embryo.

The technical term for this is “Addle”. Addling is a method used by farmers and others to simply control the bird population. If you want your eggs to hatch don’t addle them!

I chose a small pen flashlight to candle the eggs. I picked it up at The hardware store for a few bucks. I tried to photograph the candling but could never get a good enough picture due to the lack of light. I have made some computer drawings to help explain what you will see when candling the eggs.

A non-fertile egg will just look like a plain old egg. Look at this illustration below.

A fertile egg will look much different. You will see a maze of spider- like veins running all throughout the egg. Look at this illustration below.

Now keep in mind this is what I have seen with my cockatiels, other birds species will vary greatly. Also remember that it takes about seven days of incubation to be able to see anything in the eggs.

As a fertile egg grows the egg will be darker and darker when candled. The air pocket will grow larger. The yolk will get smaller. The yolk is actually absorbed by the chick and it helps sustain the chick in it’s first few hours.

I hope you enjoyed this article!

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