Pet Forum / Birds / Parrots / August 2004

Hi, folks!

  Haven't been by here in ages! . . .Am posting on the
occasion of having my two 'tiels -- the older one of
whom turned out to be a male, as I found out a year or
so ago, though I'd owned him for several years by then
. . .so that I have a pair, the younger one being a hen!

  Anyway, this past spring, lo and behold!  Since I'd
started letting the birds share a cage (at their prefer-
ence a couple of years after I'd gotten the female (the
male had originally been going to be returned to a previ-
ous owner, but happily had stayed with us), the older
fella "Kelly" (as I'd started calling him again by his
first name, his second one being too "feminine"!) managed
apparently after dint of one assumes much effort to "get
it on" with the very standoffish "Baby Bird" (female)!
Indeed, she proceeded to lay a total of five eggs!

  Now, at the time, I was taken aback and just too inun-
dated with work to give the two any aid in managing to
incubate and hatch the eggs!  Those ended up therefore
"duds".

  Now however in the past week, she's proceeded to lay
two more (with possibly more to come?) . . .as before,
just on the bottom grate of their large cage!  I cover
it typically with a couple of sheets of newsprint paper,
and what the male "Kelly" has done is to figure out how
to manipulate the top sheet, turning it around and push-
ing at it till he created what my partner calls their
"bower", under which "Baby Bird" has then laid her two
wee eggs, and broods on them!

  However, neither bird is experienced at all, and it
seems to me unlikely that any of this (possibly growing)
batch will hatch!  For the hen sits on them only during
the daytime, the male, essentially, not at all (never
spelling her, as I've read males are generally supposed
to do) . . .so the eggs are left to their own devices,
not warmed at all, during the nighttimes!

  Meanwhile, I do have some time off work till school
starts in a couple of weeks, and I've tried to learn a
bit by reading, but am still not quite clear what the
essential elements for hatching such chicks would be! Of
course, the books that I have indicate that the birds
should ideally have a hardwood nesting box with a double
floor, have water placed on the lower floor with holes
in the one above for moisture to rise, and so on. And of
course it's far, far better to mate an inexperienced
bird with an experienced one!

  Now, I don't really want to get into breeding, but I
also would prefer not to have to separate the two birds
now in order to prevent another such incident!  For it's
my impression that it's rather draining on the hen to go
through the laying process (was told that by an avian vet
when she laid an infertile egg, before she shared the
cage with the male!)  On one website, another avian care-
giver (a local gal who trims our birds' nails and the two
small conures' wing feathers, and at whose store we pur-
chase the highest quality products) suggests that the hen
be given a hormone shot to prevent further fertilization.

  Any comments based on personal experiences similar to
the ones that I've described having would be much appre-
ciated!  However, I do plan to take the hen into our very
experienced avian vet once this episode is past, to look
into getting the hormonal shot. . . .Just wonderin' whether
anyone thinks, on the basis of experience, that there's
any chance atall of any of this clutch of eggs, being brood-
ed upon so sporadically by the hen only, hatching???!!!

"Big Mama Bird"
Canada