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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Well for us it was the Cockatiel. Actually as we all know it takes two to tango and our birds have been doing the Tango quite regularly.

The male bird is the is whiter colored. He just loves to sing and he talks very well. He says “Pieces of eight”, ” Pretty Bird” and “Whacha Doin”.

We built them a nest-box made from plywood. The dimensions are 12x12x12. The back door slides open so we can peek in on them.

Breeding birds is extremely fun. The female cockatiel laid four eggs. They took turns incubating them. The male cockatiel would sit on them all day and she would sit on them at night.

We candled the eggs after 1 week. This process if very simple, you just need to be cautious when handling the eggs. DO NOT SHAKE THEM!

If the eggs are fertile, you will see spidering veins throughout the egg. All four of our eggs were fertile but only 3 hatched.

One of the neatest things about the eggs was that about 1-2 days before they hatch, you can actually hear the little chick inside peeping!

I will be updating with pictures very soon, but for now here is a picture of the first hatchling on day 1. That’s it all covered it yellow down!

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