Does anyone have experience breeding cockatiels? I’m considering getting a female to pair with my male.

[Cinnamon11]

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I've been summoned?

Storm is the younger of the two? Odd that he was sold as pied but isn't visibly pied. In the hundreds of birds I've bred that carry pied, they've always expressed it. Which is coincidentally why I hate breeding pied to anything not pied because the chicks always show it in varying amounts. Normal that the pearling fades. That happens in males.

A good cockatiel pair will produce on average four chicks and produce them often. I usually advise pulling to handfeed when the chicks would be on 3x a day. Handfeeding really isn't that hard. Especially with tiels. They like to eat. And baby tiels begging are so cute when you aren't handfeeding 25+ at a time. Then the little shrill screamy/begging and the tee-tee-tee-tee while they are eating makes you want to live in a library.

Well-bonded pairs that are used to you may allow "co-parenting", by which I mean you can pull chicks from the box to handle them and put them back. Generally speaking they will not be as tame as babies that were hand reared. Additionally, parent-raised tiels are very inexpensive and often (IME) don't always go to the best homes. Someone who's paying $100 for a handfed, tamed baby is usually going to take better care of it than someone who got it for $20.

You can try this and see how it goes. Some pairs tolerate it and others don't. Do watch for pairs that feed to heavily as you may have to intervene. I had a pair that consistently over-fed which caused crop issues. Some tiels will also pluck/chew the feathers off their chicks for reasons I have never fully understood. Sometimes it's obvious, like a pair carrying Ino and throwing a chick that looks different. Other times it's a lot harder to pinpoint the reason. Usually I pulled chicks before the parents would do that. Some pairs are happy to raise large clutches, and others prefer single chicks and will ignore the younger chicks to feed the oldest.

Always see if you can establish a relationship with a local, mom and pop pet store. Big Box stores (Petco and Petsmart) won't accept privately bred birds from individuals, but in many cases the smaller, privately owned stores, or even franchised ones, like Petland, are happy to meet new breeders and be able to sell more in the store. At my store we also hand-fed the chicks so the breeders were responsible for pulling the chicks and getting them started for a few days before transporting them to us and we finished them out. Obviously the breeder received less money when selling them to us young, but the breeder also wasn't investing the time and energy as well as the expense of handfeeding formula into the chicks.

Storm is the younger one (and if I breed he will be the one I breed) I didn’t know much about genetics when I got him but once I started looking into it I was very confused why he was sold as a pied when he wasn’t (I will put a pic in of when he still had his pearls maybe it will explain more or not I’m not sure but he did have white pearls and I’ve seen many have yellow pearls) I know the pearling fades but I was still sad when it did. I would definitely be interested in hand feeding if they would be more tame but how often do they need to be fed? Will I have to wake up many times in the middle of the night? Will their hungry screeches keep me up? I definitely will be taming them in some way while they are babies if it works I would prefer to keep them with their parent if I can handle them and they become tame but if that doesn’t work I may have to hand feed. I really want them to go to good homes and taming a wild bird takes a lot of time and patience and they don’t always become as friendly (storm hates almost everyone but me). There is a local bird shop that if I could sell chicks to them I’d be great!

 

[ColtHandorf]

how often they need to be fed?

That depends on the age. I usually pull and start feeding when the babies are being fed by me, three times a day. So 7-8 am, 2 pm, and again between 7-8 pm.

Will I have to wake up many times in the middle of the night?

No, you shouldn't. I never do anyway.

Will their hungry screeches keep me up?

They shouldn't be hungry enough to screech to wake up up.

 

[Cinnamon11]

That depends on the age. I usually pull and start feeding when the babies are being fed by me, three times a day. So 7-8 am, 2 pm, and again between 7-8 pm.

No, you shouldn't. I never do anyway.

They shouldn't be hungry enough to screech to wake up up.

Ok thank you! When I googled it said they needed to be fed every hour or two and that just seemed like to many times but 3 is very reasonable!

 

[ColtHandorf]

Ok thank you! When I googled it said they needed to be fed every hour or two and that just seemed like to many times but 3 is very reasonable!

That's probably for babies hatched in an incubator that require round the clock feeding.

 

[Cinnamon11]

That's probably for babies hatched in an incubator that require round the clock feeding.

What age do you pull them to hand feed? Do you own a bird shop! 25+ is a lot of babies!

 

[ColtHandorf]

What age do you pull them to hand feed? Do you own a bird shop! 25+ is a lot of babies!

I have several friends that are breeders and I've bred many species myself. I worked at a pet store as a manager and was one of the individuals who was trained and allowed to hand feed the babies in the store before they were weaned to go home. We regularly had 2-5 large babies (macaws, cockatoos, greys, amazons, etc), 6-18 medium parrots (quakers, Indian ringnecks, conures, etc), and 6-18 small parrots (tiels, budgies, linnies, bourkes, parrotlets, etc.). Plus finches, parakeets, and all the other stuff (freshwater and saltwater fish, small animals, rescue puppies and kittens, reptiles, etc.). There was a lot going on.

On tiels, I want to say 2.5-3 weeks? But it's been a while since I've raised any. Let me check with a friend and I'll let you know what she says. Mystical Feathers Aviary if you want to look at some of her pictures or her barn.

 

[Cinnamon11]

I have several friends that are breeders and I've bred many species myself. I worked at a pet store as a manager and was one of the individuals who was trained and allowed to hand feed the babies in the store before they were weaned to go home. We regularly had 2-5 large babies (macaws, cockatoos, greys, amazons, etc), 6-18 medium parrots (quakers, Indian ringnecks, conures, etc), and 6-18 small parrots (tiels, budgies, linnies, bourkes, parrotlets, etc.). Plus finches, parakeets, and all the other stuff (freshwater and saltwater fish, small animals, rescue puppies and kittens, reptiles, etc.). There was a lot going on.

On tiels, I want to say 2.5-3 weeks? But it's been a while since I've raised any. Let me check with a friend and I'll let you know what she says. Mystical Feathers Aviary if you want to look at some of her pictures or her barn.

Thanks! That’s super cool but that’s a lot of parrots!

 

[ColtHandorf]

Thanks! That’s super cool but that’s a lot of parrots!

That's just the babies. lol The breeders barns have a lot more going on. Also be sure you get the right nesting box for your cage. Boxes that mount on the outside are much, much easier to check on mom and babies. And they are much, much, bigger than you'd think.

 

[ColtHandorf]

On tiels, I want to say 2.5-3 weeks? But it's been a while since I've raised any. Let me check with a friend and I'll let you know what she says.

14-20 days.

 

[Cinnamon11]

14-20 days.

Ok great thanks! Also do you have any recommendations for videos or websites that explain properly how to hand feed? Thank is for being such a help!