Abandonment of the clutch, death of a parent or both and other emergency situations will push you to save the eggs and fostering is a luxury not all of us have. But if you are one of the lucky few, read on.
You have two options to save the brood. One is to incubate them artificially then hand feed, a rewarding but expensive and sometimes heart breaking experience as chicks which are hand fed from day one are prone to most diseases, lacking the immunity usually provided by the parents.
your next option is fostering. Fostering has been used to allow some species escape extinction. Society Finches are famous foster parents , when they see a clutch, the whole "society" will usually adopt and raise them. The world of the cockatiels aren't as lucky as the finches though, fostering is only possible to those who, at the same period, are also nesting.
So option one. Foster the abandoned clutch to another nesting pair of cockatiels. Make sure the difference in age between the original clutch and the one to be fostered is no more than three(3) days old. This is to avoid any great disparity in size of the chicks. The larger ones will out compete the late comers in food and when the difference is too big the parents will most likely shift to survival mode and sacrifice the smaller clutch.
Option number two. Foster the eggs to another close, similar sized parrot specie, most commonly the Budgerigar. Same as rule number one, observe the disparity in the age of the eggs. Remember that the count starts when the incubation starts. The cockatiel and the budgerigar has the same average period of incubation, eighteen to twenty one(18-21) days.
Option three. Fostering under the African lovebirds. They are so popular and although being smaller, they are excellent foster parents. Take note though that the chicks will be larger than their foster parents in two weeks so be ready to proceed with hand feeding after this period. They will be easier to hand raise at this stage with less feeding interval and better immune system.
Fostering under species of different sized parrots such as the parakeet; No breeder reported of any luck so better proceed with hand feeding.
Fostering will save you lots of time, money and most importantly, your clutch.
