BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Birds They're hatching!

My, how time flies! The first baby tiel out of 5 eggs has hatched today. I can hardly believe it. Can't wait to see if anymore will hatch.
The parents have left the empty egg shell in the nest. I thought they would dispose of it.
Should I put more bedding in the nest? I didn't really have much to begin with. Didn't know how much to put. Less than a half inch.
I've put out extra food for them. They have been ravenous all week. Insisting on sharing our dinners with them. LOL
I'm still concerned about the hand feeding at 2 weeks. I want the babies to be tame. But I work and it would be hard to feed them at the proper schedule. I think I know somebody that can teach me how. If I just handle the babies often, is it possible they will be as tame as a handfed baby?
By the way, I sold my Blue & Gold Macaw back to the man I got him from. After 1 year, it just wasn't working out. He was just too jealous of my son, and would scream every time my son came around, or if he heard my son talking. I cared a lot for him, he was very smart. But the thought that he could rip my ear off at anytime, always made me a bit leary. I'm just happy he's back with his previous owner. I hated the thought of him going to another stranger.
Plus I've sold my aviary and 100 plus finches. I'm still taking care of them tho until the new owner gets back from vacation. It all was just too much for me. I was constantly feeding or cleaning somebody LOL. I enjoyed seeing the different variations of markings and colorings of the babies they had. I think I will keep "Pod" the little guy with the bumb leg. He's my sweetie. Plus he will need a buddy. Oh.....here we go again!
And I still have Ethel the Patagonian Conure. She's pretty easy going with us. Just as long as she can permanently sit on me, she's happy. And I still have the 3 cockatiels with more on the way.
Thanks again!
Teresa

I remember the first time I had a tiel hatch I was so excited to here that first cheeping sound.
My ones didn't remove the shell from the next box it just got mixed in with the bedding or was eaten. I wouldn't go disturbing them at the moment by putting in more bedding, there is probably enough but in a week or so you'll possibly need to clean them out in a week or so.

I never considered hand feeding as it is so time consuming and I felt it better for the chicks to be dealt with by their parents. I did handle them a bit and they weren't scared but I didn't do it enough and they are what you would call very tame but are happy to come up close to end food from the top of my hand especially their favourite treat - breadsticks!!

Good luck with them - I'm waiting to see if anything happens with the eggs that mine are currently sitting on although I think they might be budgie eggs?

Congratulations on the first hatch Teresa. Hope the rest of the eggs hatch on time & you have a nice healthy clutch of tiels. Cockatiels end up very tame & trusting if you handle them frequently while they are babies, whether you handfeed or not. Some breeders will give one handfeeding a day & leave the babies with the parents to keep warm & feed the rest of the time. I've never tried this method, but I've heard that this works well also.

It works, Mavis! I have a friend who feeds baby tiels twice daily then returns them to the nest. His babies are just as tame as my hand-feds pulled at 3 weeks.

Congratulations on the egg hatching, my cockatiel chicks are 4 weeks old now and i was amazed at how quickly they grow at the beginning <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />