My cockatiel laid an egg!

[Not_Giving_Up]

This was really interesting for us, because we thought Sydney was a boy. Well, weren't we shocked! Question though...How long do we need to let her keep it before we take it away. We know it's not fertile, but we don't want to traumatize her by taking it away too soon. One website said three weeks...about right?

[Bombero1956]

1. get that bird a boyfriend

and you'll have fertile eggs real soon.

[Not_Giving_Up]

3. That has been discussed

We traded a brazillion finches for Sydney...they bred like the world was about to end and they needed to repopulate it. Not sure I want to start another bird farm.

[AlienGirl]

9. Unless there are homes lined up, you probably shouldn't

Pet birds aren't yet quite as horribly overpopulated as dogs and cats, but they are getting there fast.

Tucker

[Not_Giving_Up]

11. True...and baby tiels require more work than finches

I have enough to do without all of that. The husband wants to get another one, but then again, he won't be the one taking care of all of them, so he doesn't count.

[AlienGirl]

14. Ever had a finch talk to you?

I read recently about a society finch who was orphaned and hand-raised, and imprinted on humans. The interesting thing is the finch picked up a few words of English!

Tucker

[kedrys]

2. Hokay...

Um, does Sydney know he's a girl? :rofl: :hi:

[Not_Giving_Up]

4. Maybe that's why she was always mad at us when we called her

a pretty boy. Yeah, I'm pretty sure Sydney knows...she's sitting on that egg as though her life depended on it, hissing at anyone who peeks in at that corner.

[derby378]

5. Same thing happened with our little tiel

Her name is Piper, and we had her for about two years before she laid her first eggs. She actually has markings that are common to male cockatiels, and she's sometimes a bit of a tomboy. But it just goes to show you never can tell with these little critters.

Our tiel was a rescue, and she had a piss-poor diet when we first came upon her. But when she started laying eggs, she did so with a vengeance. With one clutch, we lost count after 23 eggs. Wow.

You're doing the right thing by leaving the egg in the cage with her for a while. We do the same thing with Piper, even though they're unfertilized and she largely ignores them except for using them as soccer balls once in a while.

[Not_Giving_Up]

7. We've had Sydney since May

She was a hand fed baby, sweet as can be. She drops large pieces of food out of her cage and bombs the cats. Other than that, she's usually in a good mood. Lately, she's been a little pissy. Guess we know why now!

[AlienGirl]

10. Tis the season for all Southern Hemisphere birds

My Umbrella Cockatoo has been shredding paper like crazy, trying to coax me under the computer desk or under his cage ("our" nests) and attempting to get busy with my hand on a daily basis. :eyes:

Tucker

[Not_Giving_Up]

12. Ha!

Well, mine hasn't made any forward advances to the humans, but she's only out of her cage for a little while each day. The cats can only be closed up for so long!

[AlienGirl]

13. Gideon is one of those human-imprinted birds

As far as I know he *never* had contact with other birds as a baby--he was an assembly-line-handfed chick, so as far as he's concerned he's a human, but smaller. (He also never learned to take care of his feathers properly, so he plucks and looks bedraggled, and has only just learned to fly--at age eleven. The newer, saner practice is to leave baby parrots with their parents, and socialize them to humans instead of imprinting them, so they know they're birds.) Since he thinks humans are his species, it's only natural that he picked a human as his "mate."

Tucker

[AlienGirl]

6. It's best to put a fake egg in its place

That way you can take it right away and not have to worry about it breaking and becoming a stinkbomb.

The reason to leave eggs (or fake eggs) is so hens feel like their nest is full and don't lay more eggs to replace them. Leave it in the nest until she stops showing signs of being "broody." When she loses interest in her clutch, take the fake eggs and wait for the next breeding cycle.

Tucker

[Not_Giving_Up]

8. Fake eggs!

I'll have to see if I can find some about the right size. I know that the finches laid eggs when there wasn't a male around, and we let them keep them for a while, but never a set time. no stink bombs ever happened, they all stayed in the nest boxes. Sydney doesn't have a nest box, so she just nestled in a corner on the bottom of the cage.