Cockatiel & Egg Laying

[Sophiesmom]

I need help with what to do about my cockatiel Sophie when she lays eggs. I do not breed her this is just what she does. She usually lays around 4-6 eggs and does it at least once a year maybe twice. I just feel like there is something wrong. She always has a cuttle bone available but is there something else I can give her to help her body while this is happening. She guards her eggs though they wont turn into babies. She seems like she is in pain and sometimes squats on her perch pacing around maybe soft chirping noises, but after she is done laying and taking care of her eggs she is perfectly fine. I would also like to know when/how to take her eggs away from her, making sure I dont do it too soon, but I dont want the eggs to spoil or crack. Any advice on this subject would be great! Also, does she need a nesting box? She just lays them on the floor of her cage and sits on them, doesnt gather materials to make a nest either.

P.S. In case it matters Sophie is about 3-4 years old, eats good quality pellet food, and hasnt come in contact with another bird since I got her when she was a baby.

[birdsnreps]

laying eggs only once or twice a year is nothing to be worried about, IMO. its the chronic egg layers that i would worry about (constantly laying eggs). make sure she eats plenty of fresh veggies and fruits, and make sure she has enough calcium in her diet to make sure she doesnt get egg bound. i never use cuttlebones for mine, i feed them a little bit of calcium care while they are laying eggs. their zupreem pellets supply the rest of the nutrition that they need to stay healthy. leave her eggs with her until she gets tired of them and abandons them herself, usually around 3-4 weeks.

[Sophiesmom]

Ok, thank you! I totally forgot, maybe I should out this in another post, but I cant get her to eat vegetables or fruits. I have tried lettuce, kiwi, strawberry, oranges, none will she touch. She is afraid of anything she has never seen before and 'hisses' at it. How can I help this?

[tielfan]

Birds are prey animals in the wild, and it's normal for them to be cautious about unfamiliar things. When you want to introduce her to a new inanimate object, it's good to start out with it at a distance and gradually move it closer to her over a period of several days. That approach won't work so well with perishable food items, but the general principle still applies: take it slow, give her time to get used to it, don't expect her to dig right in on the first day. It took me two years to get my cockatiels to eat fresh carrot!

Cockatiels generally don't recognize fruit as food although some will eat a little bit of fresh apple. Vegetables are a different matter, and with patience and persistence most tiels can be persuaded to start eating at least some types.

Here’s how I got my tiels to start eating a better diet. I got a special food cup and put a small amount of their very favorite treats in it, along with some new foods I wanted them to try. At first they mostly ate the treats but eventually started eating some of the new foods too. It helps if you can half-bury the treats under the new food so they have to touch the new food to get at the treat.

It helps if the new foods don’t look too different from the seed diet they’re used to. To get them used to moist foods I gave them some cooked whole grains (from the local natural-foods grocery) then switched over to sprouted seeds and grains. Sprouts are easy to make and are an excellent source of nutrition. They’re best when the root is just barely starting to emerge, and they still look a lot like a seed at this point. Since sprouts are already moist, they’re a good vehicle for red palm oil and other supplements that you can add just before you feed them.

I also taught my birds to take treats from my hand and sometimes offered new foods this way. Sometimes they wouldn’t take the new food, but sometimes they would! This is how they learned to eat pellets, and they still prefer to take pellets from my hand instead of eating them from a dish.

With fruits and veggies it pays to experiment with the presentation. Some birds like stuff cut up in chunks in a bowl and others like it some other way. My birds mostly prefer their veggies whole and hanging up. They prefer certain shapes too. In the wild, cockatiels eat a lot of seed and also chew on the stems of grass and other plants to extract the juices. My birds like vegetables that resemble either a seed or a stem. They don’t like big broad leaves, and cutting big leaves into thin strips doesn’t fool them.

Their very favorite ‘vegetable’ is lawn grass (chemical free of course). Unripe seed heads are a definite plus. We humans can’t digest it but it’s part of the birds’ wild diet so I think it’s great. They like ‘stemmy’ or narrow-leaved vegetables like thin asparagus, dandelion greens, carrot tops, green beans, and cilantro. They also like seed-like vegetables: corn kernels, peas, broccoli (the florets look like unripe seed heads).

P.S. You can add liquid calcium products for birds like Calciboost to moist foods like sprouts or mashes. That'll help keep her well prepared for those egg-laying sessions.

[Sophiesmom]

Wow, thanks you, I will try some of those methods!

[Monica]

She always has a cuttle bone available but is there something else I can give her to help her body while this is happening.

The best, fresh foods, maybe some extra calcium (careful with pellets in the diet!), and making sure she gets daily exercise! If she can fly, all the better! This will help keep her body in shape so that it's easier to lay eggs. If she can't fly, you need to either allow her wings to grow out, or have her do wing exercises (jumping from you to cage or vise versa, or sitting on your hand as you jog around the house).

I would also like to know when/how to take her eggs away from her, making sure I dont do it too soon, but I dont want the eggs to spoil or crack. Any advice on this subject would be great!

Either take them out immediately and completely rearrange the cage, move it to a new location (save the eggs, though!), and increase the time she sleeps... or, wait until she gets bored of them.... or take them out at about 4 weeks.

Also, does she need a nesting box? She just lays them on the floor of her cage and sits on them, doesnt gather materials to make a nest either.

No. This would only encourage her to lay even more! Any possible way you could deter her, by getting a grate for the cage? Or maybe buying a new cage with a grate, so that she can't get to the bottom?



As for food, I suggest you try out the "Kitchen Sink" recipe which can be found in the recipe section! Generally speaking, you want cooked brown/wild rice, thoroughly cooked beans (13 bean soup or similar, NO spice packet!), maybe some sprouts, and a good 5-6 fresh veggies (orange, dark green, red, or yellow veggies...), with maybe a frozen veggie mix tossed in. You can also add fruits (before serving) such as berries, or apples, or what have you? Birds like variety, they are usually more interested in things if they are given a choice. Most people say they've had GREAT success with Kitchen Sink within the first week of serving it, if not the first day!

Or try birdy bread.... basically corn bread (best made home-made instead of out of the box) with fruits and veggies inside!

And just a little tip... if you have a food processor, USE IT!!!!! The smaller the items the better! If not, chop chop chop! Dice dice dice!

[Sophiesmom]

Thanks Monica, thats great information. Just so you know she can fly, and her cages have always had a grate on the bottom. I guess the only thing I need to work on are her eating habits...