From: hubler@galaxy.lerc.nasa.gov (Dale Hubler)
Subject: Re: Cockatiel Mating problems
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 02:35:17 GMT

In article <2139@cypress.UUCP> skb@ute-cmi.ctcpc.cypress.com writes:
>I have had a normal grey mail and a pearly female for some time, and bread them
>easily.  Both were hand fed but both were abused before I got them.  (It took
>some time to gain there confidence.)
>
>After several successful clutches of mostly all greys, I decided to try
>putting the female with a more colorfull male.  We got an all yellow and
>white male (I had never seen this before, and I am not sure what you would
>call him.  He does not seem to be lutino.)

Pearl is a sex-linked mutation, Only males pass it on.  So if you never
got anything other than greys, he did not have pearly.  Probably the new
male is split to lutino.  The chick gets lutino from this, from the vague
description it doesn't sound like pearl or pied.  Are you positive the
chick is male? 
>
>After some time (the new male was not mature) they have bread.  My problem
>is that the female starts sitting on the eggs before laying a full clutch.
>She then abusses the later borns.  (We have let the parents feed the babies
>in the past and just hand fed in the later stages.)  Usually only one-three
>survive, and woe on woe, these have ALL been normal grey!
>
Once an abuser, always an abuser.  And also likely is that she was abused
in the nest as a chick.

>How can I get the female to be more like she used to be.  She has always been
>abusive to the young when she has decided she wanted them out so she can
>start a new clutch.  This has forced us to seperate her from the others in the
>past.  NOTE: separation of the female is the only way to make here stop laying!
>Taking the nest box out does not work.

If one parent is good try letting them solo once the chicks hit 3-4 weeks.
I have done this with both females and males.

>
>Why are the new babies all grey?  I had more variety with the grey male.

It is genetics.  Pearl, lutino, cinammon are sex-linked
triats.  Pied, and whitface are recessive.  Males pass on
sex-linked, both must carry the recessive to pass it on.
Often the gene is not visual, but the bird is "split" to it,
meaning it carries the gene and the offspring might display it.

>What is your opinion as to the best time to separate babies from the parents
>for hand feeding.  We used to be able to hand feed and allow parrents to 
>feed as well.  The parrents continued their job just fine and we were saved
>from the burden of being the only source of food.  Has anyone else tried 
>this (we haven't tried it lately).

I have done this to assist single parents.  Three weeks is a good age.
>
>Is there any way to curb abusive behavior from the female?
>
>Any help would be welcome.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Scott Butler			 	Telephone : (612) 851-5036   
>Cypress Semiconductor Inc.	 	Fax       : (612) 851-5199
>2401 E. 86th Street		 	E-Mail    : skb@cypress.com   
>Bloomington,MN 55425, USA
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>


--
Dale A. Hubler  (216) 977-7014   hubler@lerc.nasa.gov
Progress marches on, trampling everything in its path.