Cockatiels

Here are a couple USENET discussions related to cockatiels. One is on breeding them, the other is one switching them from a seed diet to a pellet diet.

Breeding Cockatiels

This is an extract of an email discussion I had with a knowledgeable cockatiel breeder. I have included the relevant parts about cockatiel breeding behavior and conditions. This information is mainly just hints and tips for someone who already knows the basics of breeding birds.

2/15/2002 Update: By the way, I got a new hen cockatiel and the new pair has been very productive over the past two years. Almost TOO productive! If I don't remove the male from the cage, they will begin mating and laying again even before the previous babies are weaned. Last summer they produced 4 clutches before I separated them. This is too many for the poor female, who looked pretty haggard at the end of the season. I will limit them to two clutches per year from now on.

The reason that I breed these birds is because they can be sold either to local pet stores or to individuals for about $30-$40 in this area. I am going to teach my sons to take care of the birds starting this year so that they can learn responsibility, as well as make some spending money by the end of the summer! ;-)

From: tm17@prism.gatech.edu (MAIER,THOMAS D)

The male scouts for nests when he thinks he has a mate. He will pretty much look everywhere and nest anywhere if the female tells him she's ready. He will poke his head in the possible nesting spot and then when he thinks it's proper he will go in and whistle or talk alot to attract the female. If she's not paying attention then he will stand outside the nest hole and jabber away saying nothing (just moving his beak) and puffing himself up and looking excited. Then he will go back and forth looking in the box. If the female really is interested in nesting then she will come to see what he is jabbering about and check it out for herself.

Have you seen any of this behavoir? When you first introduce a nesting box you should get a book and sit in the corner and watch out of the corner of your eye all afternoon. Once the nest is rejected they will not go through this routine again with it.

The hole is 2 _feet_? from the bottom of the box? I don't quite under stand the dimensions of the nest box and the hole height from the bottom. The box should be about 9 to 12 inches square at the bottom and the entrance hole should be about 4 to 6 inches above the bottom of the box. Too high and they will think it's a bottomless pit. Too shallow and they might be hesitant to use it because the chicks will fall out too soon. They aren't _really_ picky because I had a female that nested in a blanket on top of a dresser. When they wanna nest they really look hard for a place.

One of the major reasons a pair will not nest is because they don't feel that the conditions are right. They may not feel comfortable about the safety of the location due to the newness of the surroundings or proximity to something that scares them like a door or something noisey.

...

Birds need alot of light also. If you keep them in a dark area they will always act like they are ready to go to sleep. They want bright light for 12 to 16 hours and then darkness.

You should have the birds in the house with everybody else. Why are you putting them in places like a garage and basement? Aren't they also pets? You will find that if these birds are not treated properly they will either not breed at all or they will kill their young after they hatch or just eat the eggs. These birds have feelings and are very nice social animals. They will litteraly go crazy if you don't treat them right. They will also need to get out of that cage for about 8 hours minimum per day to get excercise and prevent boredom. If they get bored they will go neurotic and rip out their own feathers and eachothers feathers. I'm not kidding. Finches and some other types of birds can be raised like you are doing, but cockatiels cann't be done that way. They go psycho too easy.

Keep in touch. It sounds like you are going to need alot of help if you really want to raise these birds.

...

Just because you have a mate for your bird (which is a good idea) doesn't mean that they have to produce eggs and young to remain a good pair. Don't raise young unless you know what to do with them. We've raised some babies, but we stopped because it is difficult to find good homes for them. We have two mated pairs.

A word of warning. In the wild the birds only produce eggs for a short time of the season. In captivity they might try to continuously produce eggs. This is hard on the female who has to keep comming up with more calcium for the shells. It's always best to try to get them to stop for at least a half year for the female to recover. If the female keeps laying eggs year round her bones will get thinner and weaker because she will suffer from calcium deficiency. You should always have a cuttle bone and a mineral block in the cage for her. She will really rip it apart before she starts to develop the eggs because instinct tells her to stock up on minerals. The female also craves salt during this time and you might see her licking everything in sight to get salt. I usually give the female about ten grains of table salt per day when she wants to lay eggs. She'll go bonkers over it and beg for more, but I have never heard of anybody doing this and so I do it with caution to prevent her from running around and licking everything.

You can usually get them to stop producing eggs by either re-arraging the room or by removing the nest box or both. They don't need a nest box for sleeping so it's best not to have one unless you are breeding them.

After the eggs are laid the male and female take turns sitting on them. The male takes most of the day shift and the female takes the whole night shift. If the male feels that it is the females turn to do "egg duty" then he will chase her around to get her into the nest. Sometimes if she disagrees about whos turn it is the male will start pulling her feathers out. Sometimes the male gets confused and even though there are no eggs he thinks he has to do this anyway. You will see him try to herd her to the nest and when she goes in he is O.K. again. You also might see the male try to drive her away from the nest. I think this is because he thinks she is an intruder and he is prtecting the nest.

All this fighting usually isn't so bad in a big aviary or in the wild because it's more difficult for the male to corner and hurt the female because she has more room to run away. In an enclosed cage the female cann't do anything except cower and take it. Then sometimes you have to separte them. If you separte them when they have eggs, then they is nobody to sit on the eggs to do shifts. Usually this crazy behavior by the male will end after about 3 minutes. Then he seems to come to his senses because he is exhausted from chasing her around and has time to think. If you are breeding them in a room that has artificial lighting then you have to remember that you need to give them warning before shuting off the lights. They get confused about the time of day. The female ALWAYS does night duty. The male does day duty in shifts of about three or four hours and then a half hour break while the female takes over. This is when the fighting happens if the female decides she doesn't want to give him a break. You cann't just walk into the room and shut off the lights because the male might be in the box and if he is then there will be alot of fighting as the female tries to kick him out and scolds him and such. You can develop the habit of turning off the main lights and then having a dim 20 watt lamp in the corner for 1/2 hour to simulate sunset. Then they will get thing sorted out without much trouble. Turn off the small 20 watt bulb when then look like they are ready.

...

First thing you need to do is get a cuttle bone and mineral block in the cage. Separate them when they fight too much, but leave the cages near eachother so they can see. Cockatiels are always picking on eachother alittle bit anyway. They are kind of grumpy when they think a bird is too close to them.

...

We finger trained the young and only fed them by hand occationally for fun. We mostly let the parents handle the feeding because proper feeding is done best by them and it is too often to do by hand.

If you let the young be totally raised by the parents then you might have a problem. I'm not sure about this because we never tried it.

The main problem might be that the young want to be with mommy forever. They reject you and everybody else because they want mommy. To get them to relate to you it is best to take them away from the mother if they show her too much attention while you are feeding them. This concetrates their attention on you as the source of food. Sometime we would hand feed the chicks while the mother and father were there and the parents would get in on the act by making baby squeaky noises to have us feed them also. Babies will croutch down and make these rather pitifull whining sounds when they want to be fed. It looks like they are injuried or something. Sometimes you will see them do this whining thing up to the age of two. The first time my wife saw that from a 1/2 year old female she thought it was constipated and she was trying to "help the bird go to the bathroom" before I realized it and rescued the bird.

Don't try to totally raise the birds by hand. Too dangerous and time consuming. They need feeding every hour for about 16 hours for the first twoo weeks. Do handle them. It gets them accustomed to hands and faces. Once the mother realizes that you aren't going to hurt them and that you intend to put them back then she will not get so panicky when you handle them. At first she might have a little fit about it and the male might try to attack you. Just pick them up and set them down the first time. Then pick them up and stand back a bit then put them back the second time. Talk softly to the mother and the chicks. Cockatiels can recognise if you mean no harm to them.

One bad thing about raising chicks with parents that are not happy is that they sometimes kill the chick or refuse to care for them. That's why I was mentioning that conditions have to be good with their mental well-being before raising young because otherwise it will be a shocking and horrifing experiance for you if they eat the eggs and neglect the chicks to death or just bite them to death. They have to be happy and secure.

Tom

Seed diet to pellet diet conversion...

From: kelly@cco.caltech.edu (Kelly F.) hello there...

I vote to keep trying with the pellets. I really like the fact that you kind of let your birds decide which diet they seemed to like best. My tiel decided he liked the HBD over ROudybush (which is what we initialy switched to, and which i feel is an excellent diet,) so now he eats HBD.

I don't know what caused the illness, but the diet definitely seems to be at the top of the list. Its too bad you don't have a scale you could regularly weigh the birds on during the switch process. Its hard to tell if the bird is actually swallowing, rather than just chewing whatever, especially on small birds like tiels. Usually having another bird eating whatever encourages and makes that bird also want to eat the same stuff. So if the male was eating it enthusiastically, I would be surprised if she was still ignoring it. If you can keep her seperated during mealtimes, you can hopefully tell if she's eating the pellets. If you can get scale that measures accurately at least to the gram (better would be a tenth of a gram for your small bird,) would be great. One for your tiels would be 150g max. My tiel, male usually weighs about 96 grams. That way you can tell if she's doing ok.

But if there's any doubt about her eating, keep whatever she'll eat in sight. Have you tried also feeding 'healthy people food' ? This is good for her (stuff like crazy corn or rice-bean mixtures, my tiel loves rice based mixtures, also oatmeal, plain,) as well as good for her mentally in that it gets her in the habit of trying new stuff. Pasta is also a hit wih my tiels. I get most of my stuff at health food stores to improve nutritional quality. Plus my stores sell stuff like wild rice and various shaped/colored pastas in bulk so i can get the small (cheap) amounts i want. :)

Well, i hope some of the above helps.

Kelly

From: Meliva@aol.com

I've been successful converting even wild caught birds and finches. Don't put seeds in the cage in the morning. Hand feed individual pieces of pellet and make a very big deal out of it (Yumm, good bird, etc). Leave the seeds out two or three hours then place back in the cage. Make sure the pellets are in the best dish in the best position in the cage.

Each day, place fewer seeds in the cage later in the day. Try using a variety of pellets (mine love Exact Maintenance and Pretty Bird. I only feed Pretty Bird as a treat because it contains nutrisweet but my friends with cockatiels say they feed it almost exclusively) in a mixture and try to see if they prefer one over the other. Be sure they also have their favorite veggie in the cage, too. If they don't eat them either, now is a good time to start that too. If you have to be gone all day, grate some carrot and broccoli and mix with fast boiled (so it is still crunchy) brown rice. Use two times the rice as the veggies. The brown rice looks like seed and is very easily accepted in their diet.

My finches, budgies, and conures all get a token amount of seeds at the end of the day before bed. Remember, birds are very adept at inflicting guilt but rarely does one starve.

Good Luck. I hope some part of this helps.

KT Lyons

From: Cathy Quinones quinones@biology.ucsc.edu

Keep an extra dish with pellets around, even if only the male touches them. Having another bird eat the stuff is the fastest way to persuade the seed-eater that pellets are yummy!

Our 1st budgie was weaned to pellets. Our 2nd was a seed-eater, and when quarantine ended, she was put in the same cage along with the pellet eater. She had refused pellets while in quarantine, but, as soon as she saw the other budgie eating pellets, she started eating them! Instant conversion! I was really happy, considering what the 'tiel put me through...

Cathy

From: Janet E Gardner janet.gardner@english.umass.edu

Hi, Bryan. Many of us on this group know that it's hard to get birds to eat pellets, and 'tiels are notorioulsy stubborn about their food. But it is *well* worth the effort. My amazon is healthier, notably more active, and really likes people better (for some unknown reason) since he made the switch. Here are a few things you can try:

1)Try different brands of pellets. My amazon wouldn't touch two different sorts, but then we found one (La Feber's) that he tollerated; since then, he has learned to like them. I've heard praise for Roudybush and Scenic brands on this group, and several folks have said Pretty Bird is bad.

2)Try hand feeding her a few at a time, as though they were a special treat. It's a good way to get her used to them.

3)I don't know if this would work for a 'tiel, but the big birds who like to hold food in their feet when they eat sometimes like a pellet made for a much bigger bird, because they can hold it and play with it as they crunch. Kiko still thinks the big macaw pellets are a special fun food, and he seems not to have noticed they taste just like his regular diet. ;)

4)LaFebers makes something called avicakes, which are seeds and pellets studk together with molassas and some other stuff. Theoretically, at least, the birds start on the seeds and sort of eat the pellets by mistake, thus learning that pellets arent so bad. Some people also use nutriberries as an in-between stage.

5)I've heard that some bird like thier pellets moist--soaked *briefly* in water or a favorite fruit juice. It sounds a little icky to me, but what do I know about being a bird.

6)The old standby method, which was a washout for me, but has clearly worked for some folks, is to put a few pellets in with the seeds, then *slowly* up the proportion of pellets. If your bird is especially stubborn, though, she might just go hungry, so keep an eye on her.

7)I've heard of giving seed meals morning and evening for an hour or so, then taking the seeds away and leaving only pellets for most of the day. So if she wants a snack, it's pellets or nothing. Again, you'd have to moniter her to be sure she wasn't starving (droppings turning black is the classic sign).

Hope this helps, and that it isn't overwhelming. Good luck with her. You'll both be happier when she switches, and she'll live linger, too.

Janet

From: Meliva@aol.com

Brian,

I am glad I was able to help. Please call on me again if you run into problems or questions.

Please do question the advise to feed crumbles exclusively. I have been doing research on the content of these so called "complete" bird diets and have found considerable variety in nutritional content. One will have 56mg of a mineral or amino acid and another will have 256mg of the same thing. Which is more complete? You cannot assume the higher content is more complete because it may be a toxic level.

My birds get the exact, as I said, as their primary pellet. No day goes by when their diet is not supplemented by fresh veggies/fruits/carbos, from finches to conures. I try to keep them interested in different pellets to round things out and give a vitamin supplement once a week. However, I admit this is simply my witches brew. Sometime down the line I am going to have to analyze for actual content. Unfortunately, many of the pellet companies will give ingredients but not a nutritional analysis other than crude fiber, fat, etc... It is turning into a great deal more work than I thought it would be.

KT Lyons (Meliva)

From: JKajder@aol.com

Bryan,

I recently switched my Quaker Parakeet from seed to pellet food. I use Kaytee brand Exact pellets, and I followed the procedure they list on the back of the container.

Day 1-7
1 part Exact 3 parts current food

Day 8-14
2 parts Exact 2 parts current food

Day 15-21
3 parts Exact 1 part current food

After the first week, Rainbow (my Quaker) started feeling the pinch, because the small amount of seeds she was getting was not enough to keep her from being hungry. She let me know about it, too - Quakers make a lot of noise when they are hungry! By the end of the second week, she started eating the pellets.

Another suggestion I got from Kaytee - wet the pellets with fruit juice. They have an 800 number (1-800-KAYTEE-1). In my area, Kaytee Exact for Cockatiels is $4.95 a pound. Once you get your cockatiel on pellets, I am sure you could switch to another brand, if you would rather use Pretty Bird, or whatever.

Let me know if you have better luck switching your cockatiel!

Jim Kajder

From: sorsha@netcom.com (Lisa Leann)

I have a cherry-headded conure that I'm trying to convert to pellets. But she seems to be in the same case and your bird (she throws it EVERYWHERE). I have previously tried her on 'pretty bird' but ther were somethings I didn't like about it (but I really didn't know much about the effects and such, don't worry nothing you should be worried about, just my nieveness). What I'm trying to convert her on now is 'zeigler', and she hates it with a passion. My conure is a typical seed junkie. And I think if this doesn't work, I will go back to putting her on the 'pretty bird' at least she would eat that and seemed to convert easier that on 'zeigler'. Hope this helped some. I would also suggest talking to a local breeder for your breed of bird for their suggestions. Or a Pet store. Both of which I might add must have nutrition training or a reputable breeder. Oh, maybe a goo avairian vet, might be able to help, too.

Back up to the Breeding page