NaDeana's Babies
Thank you so much NaDeana for sharing this beautiful experience with us!
By Eleanor McCaffrey Copyright Notice: No portion of this text or photos
may be, copied, printed or reproduced without
permission from site owner.

"I never intended to breed birds but my cockatiels,Blue and Swayzie, were determined. The pet store told me that none of my babies would survive because the eggs were laid at the bottom of the cage. They told me to get face clothes,the same color and put them on the bottom of the cage under the eggs to keep them from getting chilled and rolling around.

I did a lot of reading and learned that the mom will get her belly wet and sit on the eggs to give them moisture. Blue wouldn't do this so I would mist the eggs everyday. This is Soccer after being fed with his full crop. It looks like it is going to burst doesn't it! His eyes were just starting to open up and he had little pin feathers everywhere. Beautifully ugly!!

These are pictures of Swayzie, the daddy, feeding the babies. He was the greatest Dad in the world to those babies!! He was so protective and loving, it amazed me. He doted on them wings and feet. I feel honored that he let me be so involved in the baby's life at the start. I could take them out and play with them anytime I wanted from the day they were hatched and Swayzie would fly down and feed them right in my hand!! That was so incredible!

I let the parents raise Soccer and Lily Angel. I almost lost Joey when he was just 2 weeks because the parents stopped feeding him. Since I work full time I couldn't feed him every 2 hours. The lady that took him decided that she had had enough and gave him back when he was almost a month. I was just thrilled. He is such a sweetie. So you see I can't ever let them have any more babies because I can not ever give them up. I will end up with way more than I can handle and having 8 cockatiels is enough!! Breeding was a lot of fun, but it was also very scary!"

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