Aren't you proud of us, mom? 4 weeks old.

The cage looks like one that I bought for about $50, although mine is black instead of white. The quality of my cage is pretty poor and I had a really hard time putting it together, and in places I had to use clips to hold it together because it simply wouldn't go together right without them. It functioned well enough once I finally got it assembled but I like the more expensive cage MUCH better. It's surprisingly good quality for the price.

Are you planning to keep all the babies, or is this is a temporary situation until they're weaned? If it's temporary and they get out of the cage frequently, this cage size will work. If you're going to keep them you'll need a bigger cage than this. Be warned that if you keep them, the brothers and sisters will want to make babies together when they're older and you'll need to prevent this.

I'm very proud of your parent birds for not plucking the current chicks when they started a new clutch. I wish my birds were more like them! It looks like your pearl baby might be cinnamon too. It's also a sex-linked mutation. I like the isolated little white spot on the rump of the far-right baby.

Thanks. The cage you like much better - is it the one you gave me link at Amazon, for $120? There is no stand that comes with it, right?

We really don't know what we going to do - this situation occurred very suddenly. I am an engineering student, a mom, and my husband doesn't help much. I feel at times that we should rehome everybody (including parent birds and 4 rabbits) to good homes because the way is it, I am very stressed. I would say, we might keep one of the babies, but not all of them (can child breed with his parent?). Also, the parents will want more and more clutches, and I never seen myself as a breeder.

All the birds in my house always spend a lot of time out of the cage. All 4 were flying today, and I am impressed how well they fly! We just moved them to my daughter's room to vacuum the living room (also her room is smaller) - but they are too scared to fly in the room they are not familiar with.

The cage on my picture already tie strapped as you can see.

The babies look beautiful. You should be proud!

Thanks Dianne!
I failed with hand feeding and desperately need an advice! I had no big problems to keep formula warm (as long as it's OK to keep a cup with formula in the container with hot water. I have to admit, I had to get new hot water into this additional container so it was kind of reheating but it was within one feeding. I used a regular 10 ml syringe. My problem is that chick wouldn't open their beaks well, or, if they would open, it wasn't easy for me to squeeze right amount. Everyone got very little food but they got formula all over. I cleaned as well as I could but some dried on them.

Would you agree that T should be between 100 and 105F? its recommendation on the formula. I really want to feed them later today again, because I can see that parents pretty much not feeding them.

Yes, the cage I like better is the one on Amazon. A stand isn't needed, the cage has its own legs and wheels.

Any female can mate with any male, whether it's brother-sister, parent-child, or unrelated birds. So if you decide to rehome all but two birds, life will be easier if the two you keep are the same sex. Same sex birds can mate with each other too but they won't have any babies.

Handfeeding is always difficult the first time because the babies have no idea what you're doing. Once they figure out that it's food they'll cooperate when they're hungry. The temperature in the instructions is correct. At this age the babies are learning to feed themselves and that food is room temperature, so it's not as big of a problem if the formula cools off slightly - the babies don't need all their food to be at parent body temperature. You never want it to be too hot of course.

I had a better luck with handfeeding today (using medication pipette), some babies cooperated much more than yesterday.

Of course, they get dirty when I feed them and a lot of formula goes not it the beak. I try to promptly wipe it with wet cloth but I just noticed (a few hours after I fed) that some formula dried in one nostril of some chicks. Is it possibly dangerous? Can I fix it? I don't want them to have breathing problems.

Yesterday we set them for the night on the perch but they kept making noise and being active and falling down and so on, that I finally put them into the nestbox. The hen just left to sleep on the perch. I don't want to kick her out spot all the time. Anything I can do to help them to get used to sleeping out of the nest?

Cleaning gunk out of the nostril can be tricky because you don't want the baby to inhale water. This year I had to clean up a baby who had dried poop in one nostril. I tried several different things and finally figured out that the technique that worked best was to dab at it gently with a wet Q-tip. It took me about ten minutes to get the baby clean (there was poop all over the pinfeathers too) but it did the job without drowning the chick.

Are the babies spending much time on the perch in the daytime? If not, you can set them on the perch from time to time in the daytime to help them get used to it. If they're already using the perch in the daytime but the darkness is throwing them off, try leaving a dim light on so they can see better.

CAn I ask - when you feed using a spoon, is it more like they are drinking formula pretty much like water (looking down)? Or do they need to look up and you pour formula in the beak? I thought if I give them warm formula in the shallow bowl, would they eat better? They are still not eating well. but it could be because parents are still around and at some point father starts chirping to them so they get distracted.
IS there any videos about feeding from the spoon you can recommend to watch to get an idea? What should be the schedule? I don't measure what they eat, its very little amount right now.

they spent last night out of nest box - 2 on the perch, one on the nest box tiny perch and one on the floor next to the nest box. The hen still got out of the box during the night to sleep up above on the perch - I don't know why. Probably the two who were close to the nest box were making noises. I do cover the cage. I leave a night light on though. Maybe I should let the babies sleep on the nest box - at least they would keep eggs warm (?)

When hen finishes laying eggs, will the father be incubating during the day, so the hen would be feeding the babies?

Babies do eat veggies! What pellets should I plan for them now and after they wean? We only have ZuPreem fruit pellets that I crush for them, but I guess they are not the best due to artificial colors. SHould I give babies seeds (that the parents eat) or should we leave seeds out? I don't want them to grow into seed junkies. I buy seed at the bird store - they make Deluxe mix with vitamins.

The way I feed babies with a spoon isn't the traditional way to spoonfeed, so there probably aren't any videos about it. It's pretty much the same principle as any animal eating from a plate or bowl - the spoon is sort of under the beak so the baby can reach down and take a bite. Cockatiel babies are used to grabbing on to something hard when they're being fed, so they tend to grab hold of the side of spoon and chug on that. But they can't get very much food that way. I make the formula thick enough so it can pile up a little in the middle of the spoon while still being pretty soft, and I try to tilt the spoon a little so the beak goes into the thickest part of the formula not on the edge of the spoon. Excuse the bald heads in this picture, their nasty mother is a plucker. This isn't handfeeding formula in this picture but it's the same general principle.