Uh oh... found an egg today! ... - A journal of sorts, from finding eggs to hatching them... Update

[perchie.girl]

I know something about Cockatiels - I've owned two, and I've also owned parrots (African Gray and Cockatoo). Are you planning on hand-feeding them? If so, they'll be quite tame. If not, I'd recommend you start hand-taming/socializing them right off the bat. Put a towel on your lap or shoulder and let them hang out with you while you watch TV. Wear bird-poop clothing. Have you ever hand-fed a bird? If not, get some advice from someone very experienced.

'Tiels aren't very bright, and they don't talk, but they're sweet if they're used to humans, and they'll bite like the dickens if they aren't. Like all parrots, if you aren't going to provide the socialization for them, they'll need a buddy or two.

They eat the same seed mixes and commercial pellets budgies eat, and love fresh greens, chopped fruit, cooked rice (no salt, butter, etc.) and cooked sweet potatoes, squash...chop everything small so they can manage it. Again, no seasonings.

I used to make a squash, broccoli and sweet potato corn bread for my parrots. Just make the cornbread like you would for yourself and add the chopped veggies to the batter and bake it up. Cut it into squares and freeze in daily servings. Thaw or microwave before serving. My birds would go berserk for parrot bread. Oh, and you can add the washed egg shells for calcium.

The big parrots also love love love Pizza. Cockatiels are flock birds. Just like parrots so they need company and can use people as their social connections. If you have more than one Cockatiel then they wont be as social with you. But Gawd are they funny to watch. Mom had one hen that layed an egg in her cage feeder so mom decided to buy her a male. I built her the aviary and she put them out there with a Cockatiel nest box. They raised up about three babies.

deb

 

[PeepsCA]

I exceeded my data usage limit on my internet plan last week (oops), so I'm late posting my latest hatch pics... but finally here's a couple pics of my last hatch from last weekend (50 keets, sold most of this hatch yesterday).
Since it was such a big hatch I had to do the pics in 2 bucket loads...




I have another batch of eggs in the hatcher now doing their thing too, but it's not going to as big of a hatch.

 

[JLeigh]

Glad you're back! Whew. Those are some beautiful keets. Hope I get to the point where I'm hatching keets by the "bucket-load". What color will those that are more solid brown on their heads be when they're adults? How are your turkeys doing?

 

[PeepsCA]

Yah Thanks, good to be back, but I am way way way far behind on what's been going on with everybody, lots of catch-up reading to do, lol.

The keets you asked about will be normal looking Pied Browns as adults. There's a variation in the genes in a lot of my flock that causes some of the keets to look different at hatch (blended down/colors, and lack of stripes, different head markings), but they grow out of it as they feather in and you can't tell they ever looked any different at all once they go thru the stage where they lose the fuzz on their heads.

The Turkey eggs are looking good, I see movement in all of 4 them still

... today is day 23 and the Guinea eggs that are in with them will need to go into lock down by tomorrow, but I may wait another day or 2 on the Turkey eggs... I wanna see internal pips if possible before I lock them down. These lil poults mean a lot to me and I have stressed over them for almost a month (including the days they were being shipped, lol), I am so so paranoid about flubbing up their hatch!

 

[daylily]

So good to see you back on Peeps! I was wondering what happened to you! Those are so cute! What do the little grey ones turn into?

I was thinking of you today as I was watching my little flock as they were partially in the woods. There was some noises but no alarms so I snuck over to check it out, just in time to see "Sal" mating with a young wild turkey hen. No flock of turkeys anywhere to be seen or heard. They hung around her for a bit eating ticks and scratching in the leaf litter and she just sauntered away. When I made my presence know the three ran to me and started to tell me all about their new friend! Reminded me of your wild turkey that hangs with your flock. Maybe she will hang out more and more.

Hoping those little turkeys of yours hatch out fine!

 

[PeepsCA]

Whoa! I need to borrow Sal, so he can breed my Turkey Hen, lol. If that Turkey Hen accepts Sal as her mate, who knows, she may stick around! My Turkey Hen is laying eggs almost daily, but doesn't have a bf, so they aren't fertile... well the first 6 she laid weren't so I stopped checking and have been blowing the rest out. She's laid somewhere around 28 eggs for me this season. The Turkey eggs that I am incubated were given to me by a close friend, and are rare colors for my area... I'm really counting on them to hatch. They should hatch fine, the tricky part for me is figuring out the perfect lock-down time/day... they are a little slower than my Guinea eggs.

Not sure which little grey keets you mean... depending on how much white they have and their exact shade they could either be Lite Lavender, Pied Lite Lavender, or Heavily Pied Lite Lavender...or Lavender, Pied Lavender, or Heavily Pied Lavender. There's also a couple Coral Blues in the mix up there.

Sooooo... I see that you have 7 new eggs incubating! Did you find an incubator or make improvement to yours? I'm glad you are giving it another try!

 

[PeepsCA]

Woo Hoo the other two hatched today.

The last one hatched this evening. It was shrink wrapped and couldn't turn his head. But it was cheeping very strongly so I stepped in with a damp paper towel and some tweezers. And chipped away the shell around the shrink wrap and he popped out. Hes still got some stuck to him. But His eye is now uncovered and he is learning how to stand up.

From the looks of them I now have a Pearl a Royal purple and a pied. The first one out is the Pearl and I thought it was teeennnyy. But the next one out was the Roal Purple and he is teenier yet he has some shrink wrap stuck to his feathers but he got out on his own. The last Keet out is Huge pied.

deb congrats on your lil 3some! Glad you were able to help the last guy out. Hope to see some updated pics soon! Also hope you get your coop sealed up so you can collect more of your eggs... do you have snakes that eat eggs in your area? Are is whatever taking them leaving shell remnants?

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
There were no shell remnants. The eggs are back but I am missing one ceramic egg..... LOL.... me thinks someone sucked up a falsie... It was probably a snake But I am still not getting very many guinea eggs. I havent found any dug under access holes like for a weasel either. But I may move stall mats Up there for the floor.

I will get pictures this week of my keets. they have grown sooo much. That one that was shrink wrapped is the biggest most active one too.... LOL.

deb

 

[PeepsCA]

There were no shell remnants. The eggs are back but I am missing one ceramic egg..... LOL.... me thinks someone sucked up a falsie... It was probably a snake But I am still not getting very many guinea eggs. I havent found any dug under access holes like for a weasel either. But I may move stall mats Up there for the floor.

I will get pictures this week of my keets. they have grown sooo much. That one that was shrink wrapped is the biggest most active one too.... LOL.

deb

LOL, wow. Guess those Jumbo genes are still swimmin' in the pool!

I'm guessing that a snake is getting your eggs, since there's no sign of the shells. I don't have weasels here so I'm not sure what their egg raiding methods are, I think they just chew the egg open and drink it like a margarita... lol.

Hope you get it figured out soon, I think you've shared enough with those dang greedy predators already!

I just shipped out this batch of 31 keets to the Santa Barbara area... can't believe I'm putting myself thru this again, lol UGH!

There's still 5 maybe 6 keets left in the hatcher that are still wet that just hatched this AM. So add another 36-37 keets to my running total for this season... I'm ready for a break already! At least I am selling them fast this year tho.

 

[rosewolf22002]

I had to share my joy this morning..I did not hatch them but I love them! 14 in all!

This is my second batch this year. I bought 12 last time. I lost 2 to a skunk. So I now have 24!