How Long After Mating Cockatiel Lay Eggs (And Why)?

Exact Answer: 3 Weeks

The cockatiel is a bird that looks similar to the parrot and is mostly found in parts of Australia. Like most other birds Cockatiel also has got an egg-laying process. The female birds start producing eggs in their ovaries and the fertile ones have a chance of laying eggs.

The infertile ones, on the other hand, do not lay eggs. Infertility depends on whether or not female Cockatiel mates or not. Laying eggs is a process and it takes about three weeks after mating before they lay them. The cockatiel bird lays one egg at a time and can take about 48 hours to lay the other one. The clutch consists mostly of about 2-8 eggs.

How Long After Mating Cockatiel Lay Eggs?

The female cockatiels will not stop laying eggs until and unless the whole clutch is out. The whole process from mating to laying eggs takes up several weeks and if you have a cockatiel pet you should know about their mating process too.

When your pet cockatiel is laying eggs you should provide extra support to your pet so that they do not feel difficult. You can always keep providing food and fresh water to your cockatiel when they are laying eggs.

There is no time as to when a cockatiel can lay eggs because they can mate any time of the year and can lay eggs any time. The bird can even lay eggs even if she does not have a partner bird in that place. But, in case there is a pair then you can expect them to mate during the rainy season and the female cockatiel may lay the eggs after the rainy season.

A cockatiel may lay eggs once or twice a year and in case the bird lays more than thrice in a year then you can expect that the bird is going through an unnatural process. If you have a pet cockatiel when it is in its 2-3 months of age then you can expect them to start laying once they turn 5 months old.

Why Does It Take That Long After Mating Cockatiel To Lay Eggs?

Cockatiel once becoming fertile goes through a process and the process could take about three weeks before they start laying eggs. However, it might not take exactly three weeks for cockatiels to lay their eggs but it might happen sooner.

The eggs laid by the cockatiel might take about 18-23 days to hatch. The mother bird incubates the eggs once they lay the eggs until and unless the eggs start hatching. The mother birds sit on their eggs to keep them warm and the incubation process also might take 18-23 days until the eggs hatch.

Owners of such kinds of pets should also be aware of cockatiels laying unfertilized eggs. These eggs will have no potential to hatch and become another bird and this might happen to those cockatiels who lay eggs without mating with another bird.

However, this might also happen if a female bird lays eggs if they have a mate with a partner. Some eggs may turn infertile even after the female cockatiel has mated with a male and therefore the owners should be aware of this risk.

If you are the owner of a cockatiel bird that has laid eggs recently then you might have the urge to touch their eggs. But, is it safe to touch them? Well, you can touch their eggs because it is completely safe but make sure you wash your hands properly before and after touching their eggs.

Conclusion

In the end, you want your cockatiel pet to have a healthy egg so that it can hatch and grow to become another cockatiel. Do let them have their space when they are mating and make sure that the female bird is getting sufficient food and water.

If you notice that the mother bird is not sitting on top of the egg that they have hatched then there could be two reasons behind it. The first reason would be that the egg that she has hatched is infertile and the second reason is that the mother bird is not interested in being a mother.

So, there are a lot of things that you need to know if you have a pet cockatiel bird at your home.

References

1. https://brill.com/view/journals/beh/141/10/article-p1211_2.xml
2. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ba62/3fa51e90dbcd231edb28057e63da08473b1c.pdf