Keep it in the family?

[birdlover12345]

Hi all


I started off with 2 lutino cockatiels in an aviary together with some other species.


They mated and from their first clutch just one daughter survived - another lutino.


Then time passed, several unfertilized clutches came and went. The daughter grew older, living with her parents. Then another clutch hatched. Three out of four survived. The one that died just got muscled out of the feeding by the other three and was too little for me to think about hand feeding.


Anyway, of the three who survived two were lutino, one was albino and one of the lutinos was born blind.


So I was thinking maybe the original male mated with his daughter? I quickly removed the nest boxes and there hasn't been any more egg laying but I'm just wondering is it wrong to keep all 6 of them together as they are from the same family?


Should I remove like three or four and get other ones in? There's no more space in the aviary for any more cockatiels and I certainly don't want any more inbreeding going on. Or can I just leave the 6 together and be confident that without the nest boxes, there will be no more mating going on?


Thanks for any ideas.

 

[ChristaNL]

I think I read somewhere (here on the forum) that you never should breed a lutino with another lutino anyway.
They are, like the true albino, birds that not only have some weird (but pretty) things going on with feathercolour but this genetic-combination comes with a heap of potential debilitating inside-the-bird issues as well.

So if you put two of them together...you are just 'breeding for trouble'.

-
In general (lutino or normals of any species)
If you run the risk of inbreeding, you do not let them breed- that is just common sense...

-



There will be mating etc. even without the nestboxes- but you could do the responsable thing and just boil any egg you find as a precaution.
It is the easiest (and kindest) way to make sure you will get no more.

 

[birdlover12345]

I think I read somewhere (here on the forum) that you never should breed a lutino with another lutino anyway.
They are, like the true albino, birds that not only have some weird (but pretty) things going on with feathercolour but this genetic-combination comes with a heap of potential dibilitating inside-the-bird issues as well.

So if you put two of them together...you are just 'breeding for trouble'.

-
In general (lutino or normals of any species)
If you run the risk of inbreeding, you do not let them breed- that is just common sense...

-



There will be mating etc. even without the nestboxes- but you could do the responsable thing and just boil any egg you find as a precaution.
It is the easiest (and kindest) way to make sure you will get no more.

Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't thought about boiling cockatiel eggs but will do so if they lay any more. Since I removed the nestboxes about 6 months ago there have been no eggs at all which is very different to how it was before when unfertilized eggs were laid very often.

 

[EllenD]

I would not let another egg hatch, as Christa said you need to immediately boil any eggs you see inside the cage for 20 minutes, let them cool, then immediately put them back inside the cage, right on the bottom/grate of the cage. Do this with each additional egg one of the females may lay, and allow the already-boiled eggs to stay on the floor of the cage until the female loses interest in them and stops laying on them. Once you're certain she is no longer laying on them then you can throw them away. This is the best way to keep her from laying another clutch immediately, because if you just see a newly-laid egg and throw it out, that tends to cause them to go into a phase of chronic-laying.

Removing the nest-box is crucial, but it won't in any way guarantee no more fertile eggs or mating/breeding, especially with Cockatiels, who are known to be chronic egg-layers. Make sure you've also got no other small, dark places they can get into/underneath, such as any "Happy Huts" or "Snuggle Huts", any tents, any boxes of any kind, any towels/blankets, any newspapers they can get underneath, and no "nesting" material such as shredded paper, bedding, wood chips, etc. No warm, moist, mushy foods such as formula, oatmeal, grits, mashed potatoes, etc. And try to get them on more a "Natural Light Schedule" which will help to control their hormones naturally, just like in wild parrots...It's pretty straight-forward: "Wake-up with the sun, go to bed with the sun", just like they do in the wild. This is why we don't ever hear birds chirping/singing or see them flying after the sun starts to set, because as soon as they see the change in the sunlight they settle-down with their flocks for the night. And as soon as the light changes in the morning they are up and vocal, and foraging for food. This keeps their hormones in-check more than anything else...

You've got a bad situation going on there, as Christa mentioned already, in that you've got 6 closely-related (1 generational difference) Cockatiels living together, and they are a mix of lutino and albino, which should NEVER be bred with each other, as this very often results in Congenital Defects like blindness, deafness, deformed beaks, deformed wings, deformed feet/toes, too many toes, and much more serious Congenital defects such as Keel-Bones that are not fused (resulting in their hearts being covered by nothing but skin basically, and the same for their Air-Sacs, exposing them to easy rupture, all it takes is one fall), hearts that aren't totally closed and that have opening/holes, malformed heart valves, non-functional Air-Sacs, etc. And unfortunately they will breed with their children/parents/siblings etc. over and over and over again. The reason this doesn't happen in nature is because once baby birds wean they typically don't stay in the same flock as their parents/siblings, they find new flocks of their own to join. So the most responsible thing you can do is to NEVER allow another egg to hatch, regardless of who the parents are (or who you think they are).

Also, be sure to have both a CuttleBone and a Mineral Block hanging in the Aviary for them at all times, as they all need them, but the females are most-likely a little deficient in certain minerals/vitamins associated with making follicles, making eggs, and the entire cycle itself, such as Calcium, Phosphorous, etc.

 

[birdlover12345]

I would not let another egg hatch, as Christa said you need to immediately boil any eggs you see inside the cage for 20 minutes, let them cool, then immediately put them back inside the cage, right on the bottom/grate of the cage. Do this with each additional egg one of the females may lay, and allow the already-boiled eggs to stay on the floor of the cage until the female loses interest in them and stops laying on them. Once you're certain she is no longer laying on them then you can throw them away. This is the best way to keep her from laying another clutch immediately, because if you just see a newly-laid egg and throw it out, that tends to cause them to go into a phase of chronic-laying.

Removing the next-box is crucial, but it won't in any way guarantee no more fertile eggs or mating/breeding, especially with Cockatiels, who are known to be chronic egg-layers. Make sure you've also got no other small, dark places they can get into/underneath, such as any "Happy Huts" or "Snuggle Huts", any tents, any boxes of any kind, any towels/blankets, any newspapers they can get underneath, and no "nesting" material such as shredded paper, bedding, wood chips, etc. No warm, moist, mushy foods such as formula, oatmeal, grits, mashed potatoes, etc. And try to get them on more a "Natural Light Schedule" which will help to control their hormones naturally, just like in wild parrots...It's pretty straight-forward: "Wake-up with the sun, go to bed with the sun", just like they do in the wild. This is why we don't ever hear birds chirping/singing or see them flying after the sun starts to set, because as soon as they see the change in the sunlight they settle-down with their flocks for the night. And as soon as the light changes in the morning they are up and vocal, and foraging for food. This keeps their hormones in-check more than anything else...

You've got a bad situation going on there, as Christa mentioned already, in that you've got 6 closely-related (1 generational difference) Cockatiels living together, and they are a mix of lutino and albino, which should NEVER be bred with each other, as this very often results in Congenital Defects like blindness, deafness, deformed beaks, deformed wings, deformed feet/toes, too many toes, and much more serious Congenital defects such as Keel-Bones that are not fused (resulting in their hearts being covered by nothing but skin basically, and the same for their Air-Sacs, exposing them to easy rupture, all it takes is one fall), hearts that aren't totally closed and that have opening/holes, malformed heart valves, non-functional Air-Sacs, etc. And unfortunately they will breed with their children/parents/siblings etc. over and over and over again. The reason this doesn't happen in nature is because once baby birds wean they typically don't stay in the same flock as their parents/siblings, they find new flocks of their own to join. So the most responsible thing you can do is to NEVER allow another egg to hatch, regardless of who the parents are (or who you think they are).

Also, be sure to have both a CuttleBone and a Mineral Block hanging in the Aviary for them at all times, as they all need them, but the females are most-likely a little deficient in certain minerals/vitamins associated with making follicles, making eggs, and the entire cycle itself, such as Calcium, Phosphorous, etc.

Wow thanks so much. You seem very knowledgeable. Luckily my aviary pretty much ticks all the boxes you describe in your 2nd paragraph already. It has been very noticeable that since I took the nestboxes out 5 or so months ago there hasn't been a single egg laid. Before i took the boxes out, eggs appeared fairly regularly. But anyhow, I will of course follow your advice given this new info you have told me.