Hello,
I am new to the forum. I have a 2 year old female Cockatiel. She laid her first eggs back in November. I removed the egg and then she laid more. Removed that one and laid another. Then it stopped. It just happened again. She laid her first one and I took that away. I then called the Vet and she said to leave that egg in and she will eventually get bored and leave it alone. Then I can remove it. Well that didn't work, she laid another one. Then last night she Laid yet another one. She is not leaving them and she is very protective of them. I forgot to say, she is the only bird so I know they will never hatch. My question is what do I do? How long will she sit on them? Do I remove them? I am giving her food and water on the bottom of the cage and also a cutter bone. She is on Pellets and seed mixture. Any help would be helpful. Kellie

Welcome to the group! Your vet's advice was good. Cockatiels will usually lay a clutch of 4 to 6 eggs, and if you take the eggs away before the hen loses interest she's likely to keep on laying eggs trying to get a full clutch.

Fertile eggs usually hatch in 16-18 days, and after about 3 weeks the hen will usually figure out that these eggs aren't going to hatch and she'll give up on them. But if she's still hormonal she might start laying a new clutch. Fortunately there are simple hormone control techniques that work on most cockatiels, and our main website has an article about it at http://www.littlefeatheredbuddies.com/i ... mones.html It usually takes longer for the techniques to work on a hen that's already laying eggs, but if everything goes well she might even lose interest in the eggs before the three weeks are over.

It's OK to put her food and water in their regular place; wild cockatiels have to leave the nest sometimes to get food, and they don't poop in the nest so she'll need to walk away sometimes for that too. Some tiels don't even like to poop in the cage when they're nesting, so it might be helpful to take her out of the cage sometimes to encourage her to go. Just be careful, because if she's been holding it in for a while she might drop a huge bomb as soon as she's out of the cage!

She can spend a lot of time out of the cage if she's willing to do it. Spending time away from the eggs will help decrease her hormone levels, and sitting on the eggs will help keep the hormone levels up.