Not long after I got Alex, I aquired a couple of tiels from my sister. This was to be on a temporary basis, as she didn't have much time to spend with them, and really wanted me to take them for a while so I could help her tame them and get them a little more used to being handled. She didn't have the time necessary to do this as neither of them had been hand raised. After a few weeks at my house, Pearl (Thought at the time to be a female) tamed down very nicely, however Pretty Lady, who was older and had been shifted around to different homes several times was a little harder to work with. My sister decided she wanted to get them a larger cage before she took them back to her house, and after a few months of being with me I undoubtedly became very attached. So with a little persuasion, I managed to talk my sister into letting me keep Lady and Pearl. Lady eventually got braver, and with a little more work she decided that a humans hands weren't something she needed to be afraid of. She still to this day would rather be left alone, but will come out of her cage unafraid to play, and is really very sweet.
About a year after Lady and Pearl came to live with me, I started wondering if Pearl really was a she, or if she was a he! Pearl had learned very quickly how to whistle a tune, and was also demonstrating a couple of other "male" behaviors. Females are quite capable of learning how to talk and whistle, but it is really more typical of a male. Males also have a sort of a dance, head bobbing thing that they do. A sort of demonstration to the one they love! A few months after he started to demonstrate these behaviors, Lady and Pearl started mating. Now, two females in the same cage will do this sometimes, and because the breeder had originally told my sister that these were both females, I still kind of thought they were. I started doing a little reserch to see if there were any other ways to figure out if Pearl was a boy or a girl other than having surgery done on him. During this time, Lady laid a clutch of eggs on the bottom of the cage and for about two weeks was very protective of them, and a very good mother to them and then one day she just stopped sitting on them. I found a wonderful message board called "Tiel Talk" and I posted a message about my situation. The people were wonderful, and I got alot of different suggestions. I gave Lady and Pearl a nest box, and waited. A few weeks later, Lady started laying more eggs. Through Tiel Talk, I learned how to candle the eggs to see if any were fertile. It was then that my suspicions about Pearl's gender were justified. We had a fertile egg! For the next month, Lady and Pearl were devoted to their clutch of eggs. Only one was fertile, but it was recomended that I leave all the eggs in the box for warmth and because if I was to remove them, Lady would probably lay more to replace them. Then it happened, the egg started to hatch! I was mezmerized by the whole thing! The chick managed to get about half way out of his shell, and then decided to take a rest. When I checked on him the next time, I found that Lady and Pearl had pushed him off to the side (still half out of his shell) and he was very cold and barely moving. I picked him up, and the remainder of his shell fell off. Despite all my efforts, and the help from the wonderful people and friends on Tiel Talk, he died. I was heart broken, disapointed, discouraged and afraid to try again. A little encouragement from some great friends from Tiel Talk, and we were at it again. About 3-4 weeks later, Lady was on her third clutch of eggs. If this one didn't work out, that was going to be it. I wasn't going to try again. After all, I never intended to start breeding them in the first place. They were just pets.
Lady laid 5 eggs in her third clutch. About a week after the last egg was laid, I comfirmed that all 5 eggs were fertile. 3 weeks later, on May 5, 2000 our first healthy baby cockatiel was hatched. We named her Fiesta in honor of her hatching on Cinco De Mayo. Within the next week, the remaining 4 chicks hatched. All healthy and wonderful. I officially decided then and there that this was only to be the first of many clutches of babies for us.
