Artificial incubation and hand raising from day one

Question
Dear Sarah,

My tiels lay several clutches throughout the year even though they are not provided with a nest box. The eggs never hatched due to poor incubation, except on one instance, when two hatchlings emerged. The parents neglected the babies, and although I tried to save them, they died very young.

This experience left me determined to be ready with the best care and knowledge should any more of their eggs hatch. I've invested in a professional commercial brooder (Brinsea), handfeeding equipment, supplies, and meds, and a small economical incubator. If I artificially incubate the eggs as soon as they are laid, would they hatch out healthy babies? I don't want to leave the eggs with the parents as they chill often and roll in the parent's droppings.

Also, I have read that day one babies should be given Pedialyte and a probiotic as their first two feedings. Do you suggest a continued use of these two supplements throughout the first week or two as well, or would that be dangerous? I will be using Kaytee formula, which already contains some probiotic.

Any advice regarding the care and raising of hatchlings is greatly appreciated. I don't want to take chances this time!

Thanks,
Duaa

Answer
Hello Duaa,

Raising babies from Day 1 is a HUGE task. I myself have never done it, and hope not to have to. Its a 24 hour deal. For the first couple of weeks you'll have to get up every couple of hours, then every few hours throughout the night to feed the little tykes. If you've never handfed before, it can also be dangerous. Handfeeding isn't difficult, I in fact taught myself with great success, so I don't want to scare you by any means. If you can find a breeder who would be willing to show you how to do it, it would be beneficial for both you and your babies! There is a video on the Kaytee site on handfeeding as well which you should probably check out.

Now, what you might want to try is providing your cockatiels with a nestbox. At the first sign of them mating, give them a nestbox and they should go check things out. You can use pine shavings as nesting material, but not aspen. The likelihood of them taking better care of the chicks if they're in a safe nestbox is much greater. They may have been too distracted with the eggs being out in the open. As well, this gets rid of most risk of bacterial infection as the eggs won't be rolling around in mom and dad's feces.

Getting into incubating, if you have a professional incubator which turns the eggs itself then that's perfect. If not, then you'll have to turn the eggs yourself.

This site has quite a bit of information on incubation (look near the bottom of the page for turning of eggs):
http://shell.pubnix.net/~mhagen/docu/incub1.html

And another great site on incubation, and raising day 1 babies, geared towards Cockatiels!
http://www.cockatiels.org/articles/breeding/dayone.html

Others:
http://www.cockatiel.org/articles/handfeeding.html (I've used this one for the handfeeding schedule for my tiels!!)
http://members.tripod.com/~Cockatiels4U/handfeeding.htm

So hopefully those sites will help you out greatly. I would first try the nestbox though as it will save you a lot of effort. Then if they do neglect the eggs you have the incubator as back up. As stated in a couple of those sites, don't be too worried if the eggs are cooled for about 4 days as they are still viable. Some parents won't start sitting until they've laid the first 2-3 eggs and eggs are usually laid every other day. So keep an eye, and if she isn't sitting on them at all, you can always pull them and start incubating.

When they are young they should be given Pedialyte, it helps in their growth. There is another thing that you can add called Cotazyme, but I believe you need a prescription for that now. There are special additives on the market for parrot babies that you should be able to find, if not in stores, then online.

Good luck, and if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

Sarah