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There is
nothing unusual about Archie’s appearance. He is a normal sized bird. He is a
normally colored male and his markings indicate that he is slightly pied. We
obtained Archie at a bird fair, along with three other cockatiels. There is
little known about his age or background since he was purchased after he
already had passed through many hands. His
favorite toy seems to be the TV remote, which has many missing buttons and
has chew marks on the other buttons. Even that is not unusual. Archie has
a song we have never heard from another cockatiel. It consists of eight notes
which are repeated three to six times. Then he chirps three times and repeats
the sequence. We can’t identify the human melody it may have come from and
believe it is a song he had up himself. At the time he is singing, he seems
to go into a trance. At that point, we can touch him anywhere and he doesn’t
flinch. Eventually,
we obtained a female for Archie since he did not seem to bond with any of the
other 3 cockatiels. Once they bonded, she was named “Edith”. After about a
year, they finally decided it was time to nest and began to explore the
nesting box that had been provided for them. After a month, we had our first
two chicks. As we
acquired more and more cockatiels, cages became impractical. Since I hated to
see the birds caged and my wife was tired of cleaning bird poop off of the
top of the kitchen cabinets, we decided to turn our dining room into a flight
for the birds. Since we enjoyed watching the birds, we decided to build a
wall with screening. Several nesting boxes were placed in the new room so the
birds all had a choice. Eventually,
we noticed another female attempting to bond with Archie. She was named
“Harlot” for this behavior. Knowing that cockatiel pairs bond, we had no
reason to believe that Archie would bond with the new female. Soon, she disappeared into the same nesting box and four weeks later, we had another clutch of babies. We found this odd, since Archie had defended his box against all the other birds. |
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Archie fills up the at buffet table |
Edith & Harlot both on eggs |
Change of shifts, Lil' Girl
(Archie is in the box already) |
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A few
weeks later, while checking the nesting boxes, we found another female in
another box sitting on eggs. We had no idea who “daddy bird” was. That night,
I checked again for the returning male. Sure enough, Archie was sitting on
the eggs. Archie had
three females sharing two nesting boxes. Finding this hard to believe, we
watched all three females and actually observed him mating with all three. Archie has
proved to be a good daddy. He takes his turn on all of the eggs. We don’t
have to check when the eggs hatch, Archie lets us know. He does
this in the following manner: When he
sees one of us approaching the aviary, he flies to the screen door and starts
making “contact calls”. If we open the door, he hops onto our arm and climbs
onto a shoulder for a “ride” into the kitchen. He will sit on the shoulder
until he is satisfied that all of the food is there; Cheerios, soaked
pellets, baby food (Kaytee Exact) and cheese flavored Chex Mix. If one of
them is missing, he will continue sitting on the shoulder until he convinces
himself that the missing food is not going to appear. This can take several
minutes. After
several minutes of filling his crop, he will fly over to one of us for a ride
over to the kitchen sink. He only drinks from the running tap. When he is
satisfied he had had enough water, he climbs back on the shoulder for a ride
back to the aviary. When we open the door, he’s off to the nesting box to feed
his offspring and their mothers. This
scenario occurs several times a day. The frequency depends on how many babies
are in each nest, sometimes as much as every half hour. When the
babies fledge, he teaches the babies to follow him out of the aviary, then
takes them around and shows where all the treats are hidden. Depending
on the female, he produces lutinos, yellow pearls, yellow cinnamon pearls and
normal grays (all female). Males are slightly pied normals. The bald spot
behind the crest is not past onto any of his offspring and we suspect that it
is a result of his mating habits because it seems to grow in when he is “out
of season”. We are
sure other breeders have seen something like this, but it is certainly no one
we’ve ever talked to. Although
not the largest male in the free flight aviary, he is dominant and selects
the best site for his box. At one point, we removed his cages and boxes
because we were concerned about the number of clutches his females were
producing. After 3 months, we replaced the cages and boxes. He immediately
recognized them and once again, defended them against all others, except his
girls. When we
redid the aviary in the summer of 2008 (adding easier to clean walls and more
nesting boxes placed higher), he immediately abandoned his old cages and
boxes and selected two adjacent boxes near the ceiling. Once again, his girls
were the only ones allowed in the area, with one exception. He tolerates our
twenty seven year old female (far beyond breeding age) to walk around and eat
from “his” dishes of seed, pellets and veggies. |
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