Wrangling Hormonal Cockatiels Makes Cat Herding Look Easy

Last Updated on April 14, 2023 by Catherine Tobsing

This is a follow-up to the post

How My Cockatiels Are Surviving a Long Trip Away From Home

Diane P. relates,

Using the suggested 72 hours of light seemed to correct King and Snow’s hormonal craziness for a while.

They did resume, however, just as committed as ever. I tried the 72 hours again, and they again decided that babies were what they wanted.

I continued to remove all cardboard or paper as they continued to try to find a nesting place.

Then, things seemed to quiet down.

I am still stuck in bed from my back which limited my time and ability for checking everything plus they took up visiting me in bed. Life seemed better.

I relaxed. Then I found an egg on a high pile of shredded paper between two books on the bookshelves and threw it out.

Then last week, I realized the birds were spending an inordinate amount of time under the bookcase in an opening about 2 – 2.5 inches high that I’d forgotten about.

While I was looking,

King obligingly rolled an egg out, looked at it, started to sit on it, backed up, looked at it again, started to sit on it again, backed up and disappeared under the bookcase.

I assume he decided it was a bad egg and removed it. I threw it out, found a way to angle a flashlight from my bed, and lucked out in seeing another egg or two under there. They’d been sitting upon it/them in shifts.

I threw out the apparently bad egg, admitted defeat, and ordered a nest box. My vet had said when I first got them, that at their ages if they ever laid eggs, they would probably be infertile, so I thought I’d find a way to remove the egg (I am definitely physically handicapped; removing the egg is beyond me) and put it in the box in a better place until they decided to call it quits or I did.

I got the box this week, put the bedding in it, and checked the set of three differently styled extendable back scratchers.

I’d also purchased one thinking one might be right for gently pulling the egg(s) from underneath the bookcase and went to sleep thinking a neighbor’s child might be willing to lay on the carpet and gently pull out the egg(s) and I’d ask the next day.

At 3:34 a.m., King awakened me with a thunder of wings, something I do not connect with cockatiels, circled my head twice and flew to the cage top to watch the opening below. I heard very faint peeping. I am now a grandmother of sorts.

King and Snow are devoted in this very short time frame.

The problem is an opening between 2 – 2.5 inches high.

My adults go horizontal, scrunch down and walk in.

A baby won’t have the room to develop correctly nor will the adults have the room to feed it when it gets bigger.

It’s much too young a baby to try to remove it to put into the nest box that arrived a day or two too late for transferring the egg before it hatched.

Any suggestions? I wasn’t planning upon young, truthfully did not want any because of my age, but I will do everything possible to make sure that baby has the best life possible, and that starts, I think, with removing it from an opening too shallow for proper growth.

I’ve considered putting the nest box on the floor near them as a suggestion so that when the baby gets bigger they might consider the option, but that might be wishful thinking on my part.

Any suggestions or comments you believe will be beneficial would be much appreciated. I am clueless as to what to do or how to do it.

Thank you.

I see two issues, Diane,

Blocking our budgies from the bookcase

This is our experiment – note reflections of full spectrum lamps.

Bookcase sealed by plexiglass against fethers, dander and seed.

We shall see how quickly the plexi panels soil

Budgie aviary Bookcase sealed by plexiglass against feathers, dander and seed.

You still can give the birds a Cockatiel Nest box or even a cardboard box and line the nest box with bedding material like pine shavings. Then put the baby in so the parents see it being done. You may start by putting the box close to where their nest was, then once they accept it and the baby, move the box where you can better maintain it.

I can’t speak to breeding cockatiels but this was our recent experience with bringing 3 budgies into the world.

Watch for poop build-up and just let Mom and Dad do their thing.

Our birds have always eaten fresh veggies.

Juveniles after fledging will continue to eat healthily if they are fed healthily from the beginning.