Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had bought a pair of cockatiels from a person. Had been informed that they had babies together in the past. Sunshine (Lutino) had a clutch of 7 eggs (only 5 made it). A friend of mine is handfeeding them because I don't have the time to do it. Sunshine is getting ready to lay another clutch of eggs. Would it be harmful to the birds if I don't let them breed again after this next clutch? They are in a separate cage from my other cockatiels. With my work schedule and soon to be school schedule I won't have the time to handfeed the babies and to be honest don't want a whole lot of unwanted cockatiels out there. Thanks for all your help.

as long as you keep them together they will breed. the only thing you can do is seperate them...

If your pair has eggs and you don't want them to hatch you can prevent this.

Either you take the eggs out and replace them with small wooden eggs (they don't have to be the exact size or color) or you can freeze them overnight and then put them back in. The reason you have to put them back in the cage is the mother will only lay more if they are missing and this will be hard on her system. I say go to a craft store and get some wooden eggs.

I agree with this last post completely. I have done this in the past when a tiel was laying eggs that I was not able to confirm being fertilized or not. After sitting on the wood eggs for a while they will lose interest and you will avert having many cocktiel babies.