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Post by Birdman106 on Jan 7, 2011 1:12:06 GMT 10
hi my friends Cockatiels have layed eggs for the first time. he does not know if they are duds or any suggestion also he is going to handrear them.
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Post by vankarhi on Jan 7, 2011 7:18:58 GMT 10
wow.........I am guessing he is new to birds?? Has he handraised before??? When were the eggs laid?? I think Cockatiel eggs hatch around 3 weeks......I don't breed cockatiels but usually the smaller birds incubation time is a bit less than the bigger birds. For me I usually pick the eggs up and look at them toward the sun if I can get into the nest box to do that (my female eclectus is almost impossible for me to check anything) ....... but I can usually at least get a quick hold of the eggs and I can feel if they are "heavier" than newly layed eggs and I can also usually see they are beginning to darken in colour.......all good signs of a developing egg. Others use a candler light and hold it against the egg to see the developing veins of the embryo ....... I haven't yet done it this way......
Or he could just leave them alone and see if they hatch the eggs. I usually leave the eggs in the nest box with the hen for a few weeks after the due time......just in case. One of my alexandrine hens usually hatches her eggs about 1 week after I estimate them to hatch.........I think she doesn't start to sit and incubate until the last egg is laid whereas my eclectus hen starts to sit and incubate as soon as her first egg is laid.
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Post by indigo on Jan 16, 2011 13:07:14 GMT 10
Ummm...eerr...well if the cockatiels have laid their first set of eggs, very possibly they will be duds but he won't know that unless he candles them (or like Tracey said) or leave it up to the parents to raise them, them selves and your friend should just be patient and wait.
If your friend doesn't know much about birds, I think the idea of handrearing them is like going from year 10 physics at highschool to applying for a job at NASA.
Hand rearing birds is something that has to be taught through time and experience and preferably being shown how, the first time, by someone who knows what they're doing.
He can offer the chicks (if they are fertile eggs) to an experienced hand-rearer but for now, he should just enjoy his cockatiels and perhaps let birds learn about being parents themselves and he in the meantime read up books on bird keeping and rearing and speaking to more experienced people like on here for example, or bird breeders.
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