Hello all,

I'm a bit sad today.

I check my nestboxes on a daily basis and have been lucky enough to find cockatiel eggs in most of them. But in one box I found more and more schredded material. Now I noticed a hole in the bottom of that one and only 1 egg from 4 was still left inside. I've picked one more up from the floor that seemed unharmed, the other two were busted...

I've reinforced the floor of that box now and put the eggs back hoping for the best... (If you look at my cockatiel video's it's the nestbox with omino bianco printed on it if you can see that at all, the swing is in the way to read it in my Cockatiel cam 14/03/2016 Session 3 vid.)

For some better news, four other boxes are still intact and have eggs in them !!
But that news doesn't make me feel any better.

That's the risk with cardboard nestboxes. If you could tape a wood bottom to the cardboard boxes it would provide more protection. There'd still be the risk of the parents making holes in the sides, but they wouldn't be likely to push the eggs out through the holes. You'd need to fix it right away when the babies hatched, because they move to the side of the nestbox to poop and might fall out.

You can candle the egg that fell out of the nest to see what's going on. If it looks normal there's a good chance that it's OK. If you see a lot of air bubbles it means that the air cell ruptured from the impact and the egg won't survive to hatch. Candling might also reveal some small cracks that should be repaired. Cracks in the shell will make the egg lose moisture too quickly which is bad.

Thx for your help.

I've already reinforced part of the floor. with extra cardboard. I don't have any wood laying around.

Next year will be easier I think. I'll have more of those wooden nestboxes.

Can you buy a wooden nestbox?

I have some scraps of plywood lying around from previous projects, and they really come in handy sometimes. I'm going to hate it when the scraps run out and I have to buy a 4x8 foot sheet of plywood to do something that only requires 6x6 inches.

At least you'll have more scraps for the future.

I'll have wooden nestboxes next year. I just though these would do...

I guessed wrong

Cardboard nestboxes can work, but you need to inspect them frequently for damage. Have you got any hardware cloth, or another type of wire screen that's strong enough to withstand a cockatiel's beak? If so you could put it across the bottom and sides of the nestboxes so eggs and babies can't fall through if the parents chew a hole in it.

That's so sad.....

Looks like the parents have given up on the nestbox alltogether... Repairs notwithstanding...

I was expecting babies by now too... Still nothing.

First time breeding is not a succes yet...

We'll see what happens next few weeks.