[Saba]

My cockatiel laid 4 eggs. Its her first time. It's been 16 days since she laid her first egg. Usually every day, the male incubates them then at night the female takes turns. They each incubate for about 12 hours and the cycle goes on.
Today tho, my female cockatiel has been acting very weird. She's really stressed, anxious and has been moving back and forth in the cage and refuses to go inside the nest now. We checked all four eggs and they're all fertile.

Her mate refuses to go as well and is not letting her come close to her (he bites her now when she comes near him to scratch his head).

Why is she suddenly acting like this? How long can we leave the eggs (unincubated) before they die? Should we incubate the eggs ourselves? And if so please tell me the proper rules and tips for incubating the eggs.

I forgot to mention that she went near the nest two to three times, peeped inside and became really anxious again. There hasn't been any ch age in the environment either for her to suddenly act like this.

Should I just leave the eggs for the night? Or could they go bad by the morning if left unattended? I'm really worried 😟

 

[waffletiely]

The eggs will probably die overnight without heat if there is a baby developing in there.

Mothers can sometimes suddenly lose interest in eggs, thats not uncommon.
I can't tell you why the mother left the eggs, could be a lot of reasons, but I agree on incubating yourself.

I am absolutely in love with incubating eggs, it is such a fun experience. Do you know what day the eggs are on? Cockatiel eggs take up to 18 days to hatch. If you don't have a incubator, the best you could do is a hot water bottle or a heating mat or a heat lamp on that line.

Once my incubator turned off for about 8 hours, I didn't realize, the egg inside the incubator however, was alive! Get them heat asap!

Good luck~!
I'm hoping to see baby tiel photos!

 

[Saba]

We did have an incubator fortunately. So we set the temperature to 37-38°C. As soon as morning came, we put the eggs back in the nest hoping the male would take over his duty like usual and thankfully he did.

We'll have to see if the female decides to incubate them tonight. If not then I guess we might have to incubate the eggs each night till they hatch and let the male incubate them in the morning.
Thankyou for the reply!! 😃

(Also the eggs are 16 days old today. We're expecting them to hatch on 19-20th March.)

 

[waffletiely]

Oh thats amazing! Soo soon!
I would recommend to set the humidity to around 70%, as it would be lockdown for the eggs, meaning they should hatch any day now!

Did you candle to check if they are still alive?

 

[Saba]

I see! I'll try to increase the humidity then. And i yes, i candled all the eggs and they embryo was well formed and i could see the heart beating as well. Let's hope everything goes well for these babies 😊

 

[Saba]

Good news!! 😃 The mother decided to incubate the eggs tonight. I guess she was really scared yesterday (idk why tho). I hope they continue to do it till the eggs hatch 😊

 

[waffletiely]

By Day 16 you should see mostly black as the baby should have formed a lot! Thats also amazing news!!!!!

 

[Saba]

Thank you for informing me!! We haven't candled the eggs after putting them back in the nest (I'm scared the mother might get anxious again and won't incubate). Just one more day to go!! I'm very excited. I have also read that sometimes they might hatch on the 21st day as well. We'll wait till then. If the eggs don't hatch by then, I'll candle them again. Thank you for ur replies. They've given lots of confidence ☺

 

[waffletiely]

aw thank you so much!!! Good luck!