Can I take the nesting box away?

Question

I recently added a nest box to my cockatiel cage, but I've changed my mind about breeding them. today, it will have been three days since I added it. They go in there quite often. Can I take the nesting box out of the cage? Or will that be a bad thing because I don't know if they've mated yet..

Answer 1

If you take the nest box away and they mated, the female might lay eggs anyway.  We had one do that from a perch and the eggs broke because we thought she was done mating, since she had just finished raising a brood but apparently when her chicks got older but before they were weaned;

she and her male had mated.

The other thing to try, is maybe get some fake eggs and put them in the nest box, that way if they have not yet mated,

the female might become more interested inb rooding over her fake "eggs" then mating.

The key word there is "might" because some Cockatiels still mate even after having a couple of eggs.

Please check out our website:

The OC blog - The Our Cockatiels Blog

http://ourcockatielsblog.blogspot.com/