Cockatiel hatching quail egg. Does it work? Pros and Cons?

loves2hatch

Songster
11 Years
Apr 6, 2012
281
10
191
Central Iowa
I have 2 older cockatiels, about 13 years old. The male is always going broody, trying to make a nest on the bottom of cage. The female has only laid eggs twice in her life, the eggs are never fertile and very small. The last time she laid was this spring, she laid 2 very small eggs and they sat on them after about a week, until I took them away. The time before was about 5 years ago, they also were very small eggs and not fertile. But they were dilegant about setting on them both times until I finally took them away.
I'm getting ready to hatch a few cortunix quail eggs in my incubator. But I thought about saving 2 out and seeing if the cockatiels will hatch them. I've seen a couple of post here on BYC about it but the post never seem to finish. One said they did it but never got a picture and the quail ended up dying had lice or something. I don't want my cockatiels to get lice or mites! Yikes! I'm thinking this persons cockatiels might have already had lice or mites, but they never said. Unless quail can have them before hatching from an egg?

My plan is, I put in a nest box with fake eggs and hopefully they both go broody If they do I will put in two quail eggs to replace the fake eggs. The female may not go broody since she didn't lay them. So this will be a mute point, if she doesn't. I realize she may lay a couple of her own too since a nestbox is put in the cage. But.. If they both go broody, Does anyone know what I would have to look out for? For instance, do quail carry Lice, mites ect.? What diseases or harm could happen from them hatching out the eggs? If they do hatch I will pull them out and put them in the brooder with the others quail chicks.
I'm posting this on the quail page instead of the cockatiel page since I'm wanting to know more about what diseases if any quail carry.
I read on here where some keep quail and cockatiels in the same aviary. So I'm thinking quail don't necessarily carry anything harmful they can pass to cockatiels especially from the egg stage?

Please let me know your thoughts other then, Please don't do it.
If you don't think it is a good idea to try this, please explain why.

Thanks in advance,
 
Two things come to mind allowing Cockatiels to incubate quail eggs. First, the incubation period for Cockatiel eggs is 18 to 21 days. If you are hatching Coturnix quail, that hatch at 17+ days, the Cockatiel will probably not stop turning the quail eggs in time for the quail to get into position to hatch. Second, baby Cockatiels are hatched naked and blind. They are fed by the parent bird for about 6 weeks. So I am not sure how this would work out for a quail that can feed itself right from the start. You might want to let this bird incubate the eggs until lock down day and then finish them off yourself, raising them in a separate brooder from the Cockatiel.

I do not believe that there is a possibility of disease transfer from parrots to quail or quail to parrots. Two different species that work out bacteria and virus's differently.
 
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Thank you for your reply. Glad to know I wouldn't have to worry about diseases from the egg/hatchling or vice versa. I didn't think so but I wanted to be on the safe side before I tried something like this. I seen where some keep the two together in outside aviaries.
I Do think this might be a mute point, It doesn't look like my female wants to set on fake eggs but so far the male is constantly in the nest box during the day with the fake eggs. My female hasn't went in for her turn or even checked it out yet but she may be waiting until he gets it just perfect in there.

I found someone near me selling quail eggs (they were going to turn the lights off for theirs to stop laying for the winter) so I went ahead and picked them up and put them in the incubator but if I see the female setting I will take two out and replace the fake ones to try it.

I could be wrong, but I don't think them turning the eggs the last few days would be a big issue as chickens have hatched chicks that weren't the same number of days as them, also in the incubator the eggs get turned and rolled around by the other hatching chicks if not set upright in cartons. But I would definitely pull them out right after they hatch So the cockatiels don't try and feed them replacing them with the fake eggs until the number of days are up.

This is definitely a trial batch for me anyways as I've never hatched in the late fall/winter and on top of that I'm trying the dry incubating method when my furnace is running. Which together could be a big let down with these two combinations together. But I do have a styrofoam incubator and it is in my basement. I will have to wait and see what happens.
 
My male Cockatiels are definitely more broody than the females. The males are persistent and will set on rocks if they thought they could hatch them. LOL Good luck with this hatch. I think you will enjoy this path of hatching!
 
Wouldn't you know it my female went in the box and decided to lay on the fake eggs earlier this week. She is even going into the nest for awhile and sitting on one egg during the day while the male is sitting on the other egg. My quail are due to hatch this weekend so I don't know if i should put in a couple or not. I keep going back and forth but at this point. I'm not sure what the results would be Or what kind of data this experiment would give since they will only be hatching at this point and not really doing any incubating.
There is a couple of eggs that I candled that don't have as big of air sac. but it could be the fact that I can't see into these shells as well.
Maybe I will put in two of those with the smaller air sacs in with the cockatiels. See what happens.

Decisions, Decision!
 
I just took out the box. I swapped the fake eggs for quail eggs that were clear after candleing to make sure they would still set on them. This made them both quit going into the box.They went in checked it out moved the eggs around and hoped back out. Neither wanted to set after this not even my male. Guess they didn't like my experiment so they weren't going to play along.
 

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