Hi all,
I've seen Dianne was asking about my situation. The questions I am having change each day, so here is a brief description of the situation and questions I have at this time. I am not a breeder at will, I am just doing what I should and can.
First time parents had 7 eggs, 4 hatched. Today chicks are 19-21 days old (if the hatch day is day 1) and yesterday they were 97, 98, 101, 107g. I was worried a little that parents didn't seem to be spending much time with them, but I can see that weight gain is very good so I am not worried about malnutrition. I received 5 lbs bag of ZuPreem formula but I don't know if we are going to use it.
Right now my biggest concern is that yesterday one chick happened to fall off the table when parents suddenly flew into the room where he was put on the table. The table isn't high (16 inches or 40 cm) and there is a soft carpet on the floor. He fell on his back, I picked him up right away and he seemed to be all right, but you never know. I am blaming myself so bad! Today in the morning they all were looking up when I peaked into the nest box. So he is behaving pretty much like he used to and no different from the siblings. Should I assume he wasn't hurt or do I need to check something else? I will monitor closely to prevent any falls in the future!!!

Parents' diet. They were on a good quality seed mix that a specialized bird store in my city makes + ZuPreem fruit pellets. Our hen eats green leafy veggies, and both of them now eat sprouted grain bread. They love toasted waffles (I know these don't probably have nutritional value), I also let them eat a small amount of multigrain or sweet potato chips with low sodium (they love them), plus millet spray of course They are crazy about mineral block at this time. We offer cuttle bone, a regular mineral block and a fancy mineral block that I bought at Dr Foster and Smith. They prefer a regular mineral block, each day I scribble it to grind some amount and they consume it at a high rate! I just added to their diet regular cockatiel Nutriberries (being ignored) and I also got "Roudybush High energy breeder crumbles" (the name of them sounded promising). Don't know yet if they like it, I add it to the seed bowl. You can see that I frantically buy new stuff in hope they would like something else (don't know why I think their diet is kind of poor). I am trying to sprout seed mix (just started, never did it before).

Nest box right now is at the bottom of the cage inside the cage. We rushed to offer a nest box when we discovered the first egg on top of the book case so I didn't have enough time to research that it should be as high as possible. I am thinking to mount it outside the cage into higher position to give them more room when they fledge. If someone knows a good article on what to expect after 3 weeks of age, please post a link. I am reading info regarding cockatiel breeding but often it takes you too deep into technical details that are irrelevant to my situation, that confuses me even more.

I still can't decide if we have any splayed legs problems. I will try to post pics.

When do chick start to need ...hmm... entertainment or toys?
When will they need first pellets? What pellets could you recommend as first food?

We don't use any supplemental heat and never used. We keep room T at 75F or sometimes higher when it gets naturally higher (not forced by the heater). I am using warm mist humidifier (is it OK?) and I started to use oil radiator on Low next to them. Would it be better to offer a heat source right at the next box (and what can you recommend)?

We live in Kansas, and we also have 4 outdoor rabbits. Thank you for any advice!

Hello and welcome to the group! It's a small group but we have several experienced cockatiel breeders who can help you out.

It sounds like the chick who fell is OK. At this age they should have a fair amount of feathers, and he probably helped break his fall by doing some flapping on the way down. Continue to keep an eye on him but it sounds like he's fine.

Chicks generally start eating less at around 3 weeks and may lose some weight, so don't be alarmed if this happens. They're getting ready to fledge and couldn't fly very well with a huge heavy crop weighing them down. Their growth rate isn't as fast as it was before and they don't need as many calories. This is also the time when the parent birds may start getting interested in a new clutch, and may pluck the chicks to encourage them to leave. Hopefully this won't happen to you but don't be surprised if it does - cockatiels are notoriously bad about this.

It sounds like their diet is pretty good. Parent birds usually prefer to feed soft foods to babies since they're easier to digest than hard foods. Pellets count as a soft food since they turn to mush when the parent drinks water. It can take time for birds to accept sprouted seed because cockatiels aren't super keen on moist food, but once they get used to it they'll probably love it as a baby food. My parent birds also devour organic multi-grain bread.

As the babies get closer to fledging age they'll start spending a lot of time looking out at the world through the nestbox door, then sitting in the nestbox door, frequently making it difficult for the parents to go in and out lol.



The first flight is likely to be an accident where the chick loses its balance and falls out of the nest. If you move the nestbox higher it will be helpful to leave a fairly clear path from the nest to the floor so the baby doesn't hit anything on the way down. It will also help the baby if you remove the floor grate or spread newspaper on top of the grate to create a solid floor. Babies don't have the skill to walk on a floor grate.

They'll be very clumsy at first and won't be able to sit on a perch for very long without losing their balance and falling off. So the baby may spend a lot of time in the bottom of the cage at first. The parent birds don't always know quite what to do with a "floor chick", and it's OK to put the baby back in the nest from time to time where it's guaranteed to be fed. It'll come back out again when it wants to. I also like to put the babies in the nest at night until they're good at sitting on a perch, so they have a comfortable place to sleep.

Pellets are a relatively hard food for a baby to eat and they will learn to eat other foods sooner. Babies learn best with foraging-style eating and it takes much longer for them to learn to eat from a dish. So hang up food in easy to reach places and spread it out on a flat surface. Babies learn to eat millet spray very quickly but loose seeds take longer. They'll learn to eat soft foods like leafy greens, corn kernels, whole grain bread, and sprouted seeds pretty quickly. Provide harder foods like pellets too but it will take them longer to manage these foods. If you provide a shallow bowl of water that they can wade in they'll learn to drink water pretty quickly, but if they don't have a wading pool then learning to drink water will be one of the last skills they learn.

They won't really need toys for a while but it's good to provide them. The whole world is their toy, and they'll be busy exploring and learning practical skills like flying, climbing, and feeding themselves.

If the birds are indoors and the house temperature is comfortable for you, it will be comfortable for them too. If the babies are spending all their time huddled together for warmth you may want to provide some heat, but if they're independently wandering around the nest they're comfortable.

Carolyn, thanks a lot!
So... does it make sense to put a nest higher or would it be fine on the floor? Will they learn to fly if the nestbox is on the cage floor? What is the reason it's advised to mount the nestbox as high as possible? Do they feel safer this way?
Also, will I need to provide a separate cage for the chicks?
Yeah, it may be that parents prepare for the new clutch. I saw them sitting next to each other, and the hen wants the cock to pet and rub her, but he was cleaning himself and did notice, so I was the one who would give her a rub, hope she appreciates this I was thinking - she is stuck with only one male around. How is she supposed to choose a good male if there is nothing to choose from? But, their relationship improved recently, I would say.
Is there a way to prevent a new clutch at this point?
How soon should I give chicks millet spray? do I put it right inside the nestbox?

A higher nest makes the parents feel more secure - in the wild they would look for a nest up in a tree, not down on the ground. But your parents obviously feel secure enough to nest down low. I don't think it makes any difference to the chicks. They'll learn to fly after they leave the nest no matter where the nest is. Chicks commonly end up on the ground when they leave the nest in any case, and they have an instinct to fly upward and try to land on anything they can find that vaguely resembles a tree branch. In my house this means the top of picture frames and on the ceiling fan (which isn't running).



In the wild, chicks don't have the opportunity to experiment with feeding themselves until they leave the nest. If you want to offer them food before that it's OK and they will experiment with it. There's nothing wrong with putting dry food in the nestbox although I never do it - it's too much like letting the kids eat cookies in bed lol. You must be taking them out of the nest to weigh them, and if you want to you can use this time to offer them millet spray.

If you want to discourage a second clutch you could make the apparent night length a little bit longer than what they're used to, to give them the impression that the days are getting shorter (which they actually are). There's more info on hormone control at http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... mones.html But don't do it as intensively as what the article says - you don't want to depress their hormone level so much that they stop feeding the babies.

Hello!!! and welcome.
So nice to see you here.

Thanks, Tielfan and Dianne!
I keep watching the chick who, I think, fell off the table. A strange thing that I notice with him, is that when I put him down, his abdomen is sitting so low on the surface that it prevents him from walking (this is how it looks to me), while other chicks don't have a whole abdomen completely on the ground - they just touch a little bit. I would say, other chicks are standing on their feet while this one is sitting on his abdomen. But the chick I am talking about is also the youngest one, 2 days younger than others, maybe this makes the difference? I will post pictures tomorrow.

Parents are going thru some courtship (initiated be the hen) that I didn't notice earlier. Another change is taking place by the nest in the evening - our hen doesn't let our cock inside the cage. Some time ago, our cock was thinking the eggs (and later chicks) were just his, and hen had a hard time getting into the nest to switch with cock for a night. But during last couple of weeks everything was peaceful, until yesterday.

I don't want to make their night even longer as I am worried they need to go eat in the morning so they would have something to feed the growing chicks. They prefer to eat outside the cage.
I will post more tomorrow, including pictures.

Age definitely does make a difference, so that might be the reason he's not standing up as straight as the others. It's likely that he'll start standing up properly soon.

It's up to you to decide what kind of risks you're willing to take to prevent a second clutch. If you don't particularly mind having more babies and are mostly concerned about the current chicks being fed well, you can just wait and see what happens. It sounds like the parents haven't started mating yet, and there can't be any fertile eggs until that happens.

Thanks, Carolyn!
Last time I was changing bedding, I threw in a little less pine shavings, as someone told that I didn't want babies to leave the nest earlier than they would be ready. They all looking out standing by the opening, but the "floor" level is too low, or the "window" is too high. What is the optimal distance between the shavings and the door opening?
Also, can I reorganize the cage? I was reading that changes (at this period?) can lead to some plucking/abuse that parents can do to babies if there are changes to environment. Can't recall if it was about this time period or something else.

If they start laying eggs, would parents be OK with both eggs and chicks in the nest?

Our parents (hen is on the right)

this is the baby with abdomen too big