Breeding your Cockatiels
Breeding Season:
Breeding and nesting activities commense In the spring or late summer.
At this time, the male will "work" the nest box, chewing on the entrance hole and other surfaces of the nest box; basically customizing it to his liking. Both male and female will repeatedly inspect the nest, move the nesting material around, and spend considerable time sitting in the nest box.
The male will try to charm the female by performing a "mating dance": he squares his shoulders, bobs his head, makes little stiff hops and leans right up next to a female to sing loudly into her ear. They will spend considerable amount of time grooming each other, which is a sign of pair bonding.
Once the female is ready and receptive to his advances, she will crouch down next to him in a typical mating stance, back horizontal, tail elevated, crest lowered - allowing him to mount her. The photo to the right shows an actual mating. As you can see, good balance is required if fertile eggs are to result from this mating - a sturdy perch is as important as leaving plenty of room between the perch and the top of the cage to allow the male to perch on the female.
The mating act itself can take as long as a full minute. He then flies off, and she commences to preen herself. The pair will mate repeatedly over the next days.
Egg-laying is likely to happen two weeks after the first mating.
To prepare them physically for the eminent job of incubating eggs, both the male and female will form brood patches on their chests - warm places where eggs will touch their skin with no barrier of feathers.
Setting Your Cockatiels Up for Breeding:
Lighting:
Cockatiels in captivity will breed at any time of year provided the conditions are favorable. They need 10 to 12 hours of daylight or bright artificial light, in addition to having access to plenty of food, water for drinking and bathing, and a suitable nesting site. Please click here for healthy lighting options.
Diet:
All birds, breeding or not, need a well-balanced balanced diet. A good diet will prepare them physically for the challenging task of raising a family and will also help stimulate breeding.
The diet should consist of fresh greens, soft foods, a high-quality seed mix and I love providing my birds with sprouted seeds. Birds enjoy them and it provides excellent nutrition. Some birds relish wheat-germ meal. Below are some recommended food items:
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Soft Foods: moist (not soaked) whole wheat bread; hard-boiled eggs mashed together with the crashed egg shell to provide additional calcium; high-protein baby food cereal mixed with water; greens, pasta, cooked rice, sprouted seeds, beans, corn-on-the-cob, peas, oatmeal, carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, and any other healthy food items that have been cooked or softened in some manner.
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Cuttlebone and mineral blocks. The calcium is used by the female's body during egg production. If the hen doesn't have enough calcium stored in her body, the eggs can be soft shelled and egg binding is more likely.
Supplementation: Spirulina, Bene-Bac, Echinacea and Prozyme sprinkled over all fresh foods.
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Staple Foods: A good-quality Cockatiel seed mix and a dish filled with Petamine. I am not a supporter of formulated diets with over-processed ingredients that have very little nutrients left, with added low-quality supplements to make up for the lack of nutrition, and artificial coloring and preservatives. Good quality seed mixes in addition to fresh food are so much more enjoyed by the birds and are better for them.
Even if your birds don't generally eat some of the above items, they usually aren't picky when faced with begging chicks - as long as the food is soft and moist enough to easily feed to them. This, in fact, presents itself as a perfect opportunity to convert 'seed junkies' to a healthy diet. Do make sure to remove fresh foods from the cage and replace every few hours to help control possible bacterial and fungal overgrowth.
The best time to feed fresh / cooked foods is first thing in the morning and in the late afternoon or evening. Usually the food will go pretty quickly as they parents are busy feeding the hungry chicks. Any left-overs should be removed after 30 minutes as they will spoil. The rest of the time offer dry wholeweat bread, fruits and vegetables, and Petamine, Sprouted Seeds and Wheat-germ Meal in separate dishes to provide the parents with plenty of food for the chicks and for themselves.
- Providing these food sources BEFORE the mating begins will signal to the parents that this is a good time to get started on a family and bring them into breeding condition.
It is vital to make sure that the breeder birds actively raising a family are provided with a good variety of food items AT ALL TIMES.
Breeding Set-up:
- Housing / Cage: The breeding pair will need as much space as you can possibly provide. I prefer birds in a planted aviary setting - and cockatiels do really well in an aviary; however, this option doesn't avail itself to many bird owners.
If the cockatiels are to be housed in a cage, the cage should, at a minimum, have the following (or approximating) dimensions: 30"L x 18"W x 36"H. Remember, bigger is better when it comes to housing your cockatiels. Provide the biggest cage you can possibly accommodate. A double-door is desirable, as it will facilitate housekeeping for you.
Welded wire cages are popular with breeders as they are easier to attach boxes to and you can easily cut a hole in the side of the cage for the nesting box. The hole can easily be patched after the breeding season is over.
If you are handy and decide to build your own cages, please keep in mind that chicken wire or wire with 1"x1" square openings are not safe for your birds, as heads get stuck in the wires. A suitable wire for cockatiel cages would be 1/2" x 1" galvanized-after-welding wire. Do not use wire that was welded after galvanization, as welds contain lead, which can result in heavy metal poisoning. Galvanized wire should be scrubbed thoroughly with a vinegar-and-water solution to remove the zinc from the coating. The shinier the wire, the higher the zinc content. As birds chew on the wire, they ingest some of the zinc leading to serious health problems and possibly death.
- Nest Box: The nest box needs to accommodate the parents and 4 or 5 chicks. They are usually 12" tall by 10" or 12" deep with a 3-inch round hole at the front of the nest box to allow the breeding pair access to the inside of the box. The nest box should also have an inspection door either on the top of the box or on the backside of the box to allow you to check on the pair, as well as the eggs and the chicks. Suitable wooden cockatiel nest boxes are readily available at most pet stores. Many breeders are using cardboard boxes in a holder in place of wooden breeding boxes. Nesting boxes are so inexpensive and convenient that I see no reason for that. Furthermore, cardboard boxes are unsanitary as there is no way to clean them. But it is a temporary option. You can put the nest box on the bottom door and use the top door to access the cage.
It is natural for breeder birds to "customize" the nesting box to their liking. They may chew on the doorway, throw out some bedding -- this is a natural process. The male does so quite noisily pecking at the wood to call the hen's attention to the home he's providing for her and any chicks.
Add about 2 inches of pine shavings / pine chipsto the bottom of the box to help stabilize the eggs and absorb the droppings from the chicks. The larger the wood chips the better, so the parents don't feed it to the babies or the chicks accidentally ingest it. Other options for nesting material include shredded paper and dried grass.
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Several Perches (minimum 2): Remember, the mating itself usually happens on the perches. If they are not sturdy and placed correctly, the male cannot properly balance on the female during the mating process resulting in infertile eggs. If the perch is too close to the top of the cage, he won't be able to mount and mate with the female. The dowel rods that usually come with cages tend to be slick and the birds can slide off. Natural branch perches are preferred. They provide different gripping diameters, contain minerals that the cockatiels will benefit from as they chew on the branches and they provide the birds with a more natural environment.
- Others: Toys should be provided. Your cockatiels are not robots and toys for them to chew on and play with are really important for their mental and physical well-being. They should have something to do other than breed.
Both the male and female also need a water dish big enough for them to bathe in. The eggs need different levels of humidity. The parents instinctively know to increase the humidity in the nest box if needed - and they do so by bathing and then settling into the nest box on top of the eggs. Birds always should have the opportunity to bathe -- or should be misted -- as a way of grooming themselves.
Cockatiel Egg-laying & Incubation
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