taming an older cockatiel?

Question by S.: taming an older cockatiel?
i have a 15 year old cockatiel who is not hand tame, and i want to try to tame him but i’m afraid that he’s too old to become comfortable around people. he’s extremely clumsy and fearful of just about everything, including most toys and food treats… even a mirror freaks him out. he does come out of his cage when he wants to and likes to walk on the table around his cage, and he can whistle a little tune i taught him, but it’s taken years for him to get to this point. i’ve tamed young budgies and lovebirds before, but i’ve never tried it with an older bird. any effort i make to tame him seems to seriously stress him out… has anyone been able to accomplish this? any advice?

a little background info: about 6 years ago i found him in my backyard, and he had been injured by a cat (which i’m sure was pretty traumatic). i took him in and he’s now very healthy and enjoys my family’s company, but i have no idea how his previous owner(s) treated him.

Best answer:

Answer by parrotgirl
I would suggest taming him by giving him treats as you pass by for a few days. Then try to get him to step up on your finger. If he is seriously stressed out, let him step up on a perch. He should learn to step up. After that, you can take him out.
When he gets scared, you could say something soothing to him, like “poor baby”.

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Cockatiel taming help?

Question by A K: Cockatiel taming help?
So i have 2 cockatiels that are a little on the wild side. They won’t stand on my finger for over 15 seconds, they take food from my hands, they dont let me pet them at allll… and they bite

any idea how to stop biting, let me pet them, and stay on my finger longer?

Best answer:

Answer by P.C. A
I knew a lady who had special licenses to raise red tail hawks and other birds of prey and protected birds. She also had this one cockatiel who hated her guts LOL

Anyway, she asked if I wanted him and of course I said YES!

EVERY single day, I would quietly and slowly approach the cage, talking in a soothing voice. I would open the cage and slowly bring my finger to Smokey’s lower breast. He would fuss and chew the heck out of my finger then after a few seconds I would slowly leave him. This way I did not show him fear, or anger. Granted my finger hurt like H.e double hockey sticks, but I just pretended all was fine.

After many weeks of this, one day he started to bite but stopped his beak just resting on my finger for a second and then he raised up, turned his head so he could look me in the eye, and you could see he was thinking. He just stepped on my finger like nothing was ever wrong. The next day I went to him again and again he just hopped on my finger so I slowly brought him out of the cage that day.

After a while, I got to where I left the cage open 24/7, but I also did not have any cats, dogs, kids and so on. Eventually he was just like a cat waking me up. I would not hear him but he would land on me and start preening my face-very sweet. And I would open my eyes and he would raise his little head cause he knew he aroused me. And I would smile and say, “Good morning Smokey.” And just like a cat, he often woke me up before I would normally get up LOL.

Anyway, it got to to be that when I had friends over for dinner and cards afterwards, Smokey was also part of the party. I would get him off the top of his cage and put him on my shoulder. He would walk down my arm to my cards and one night I made fun by allowing him to pick the card I would play-needless to say I lost very badly and everyone was laughing about it! But EVERYONE loved Smokey, cause he was SO interactive with me.

I literally turned a monster into a teddy bear. If you have any more questions on this, I can try to answer, but the point is, everything has be consistent, and done without any exageratory movements or excitement. When you are persistent and show absolutely no threat, they eventually come around-patience is a big key here too as you can see. It was not overnight-that entire process took me several months-I was undoing behavior he had had for several years.

What do you think? Answer below!

Hand taming new cockatiel?

Question by Zoe M: Hand taming new cockatiel?
Hand taming new cockatiel?
Hi, I need a little help with my new cockatiel, He is 1 1/2 years old, i got him on saturday. he was hand tamed once but he has been in his cage for a about 3 months because his previous owners got a kitten. He will stand on my finger/ shoulder but he will bite my when i put my finger near him for him to step up on, and i cant touch him or he flys away or bites. he seems to like when you talk to him, I tried hand feeding him to bond with him but he wont take any food from me, instead he bites my hand. What should i do to bond with him?

Best answer:

Answer by Oh E
Don’t force him out of his cage- if he wants to come out, he will come out on his own will. So I’d advice opening his cage and sticking your arm next to the opening. If he jumps on, praise him with a treat or such.

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HELP TAMING MY COCKATIEL?

Question by samrozy@sbcglobal.net: HELP TAMING MY COCKATIEL?
so 5 days ago I went to the store and got myself 1 cockatiel and named it Coco…. it was only 2 months old so i thought it would be pretty easy to tame… so ever since i got it i started doing reasearch and it said that u sould leave ur cockatiel alone for a couple of days and be around it so it can get used to you…. so everyday i would come home from school, change the food and water, clean the droppings and the cage, and sit down and do my homework next to it and use the computer…. i would be around it for at least 2 hours a day…. so one day i decided to try and put my cockaitel on my finger but it tried to bite me… it doesnt really know what biting is cuzz it was handfed but i know it tried to….. and i have tried and tried to make it come to me but it hasnt…. what can i do to make him come to me… ive also tried giving it snacks and millet and veggies(which it loves) but still no luck….. PS. i dont think this is really important but when we first got it my dad grabbed him out of the cage to play with him even tho the bird didnt want to…. could this have scarred the bird for life or something???? PLEASE! HELP ME CUZZ I WANT TO TAME MY COCKATIEL

Best answer:

Answer by Alyat Indre
So was it handreared or handfed? there is a big difference…

handreared; held and played with, but its parents do the feeding and ‘trainging’
handfed; from a few weeks of age, fed by ppl and kept from parents..leaving it thinking ppl are its parents..

well it takes many days, which can turn into weeks or months, but t takes a while for trust of a bird. because they are highly intelegent they have a memory which can be good and bad. even try to start with sitting your hand in his cage, not near him, just in the cage, but near so if he wanted to, he could come p to it (eg. posistion your hand on one edge of a perch he is sitting on) then after maybe two or three days of that, put seed, veggies or something on your hand, see if he comes near. do this each day for a few days.. you can be the one to choose how long…

then start going closer to him..if he gets scared, stop and go back to the last step or stage you were at..he should slowly get used to you..it is good you are spendig time with him like that…and i honestly dont reaslly think ur dad could of done that much damage to him, but every bird is different…

have fun good luck, hope i helped

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Cockatiel Care – Basics Of Caring For Your Pet Cockatiel, Taming, Training And Behavior

www.cockatielcarecenter.com
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Taming a three-year-old cockatiel with a phobia of hands?

Question by Sheri M: Taming a three-year-old cockatiel with a phobia of hands?
I’ve had my male cockatiel for three years, and since the day I bought him he’s been very frightened by hands. He is extremely friendly to me, constantly singing and chirping and trying to get my attention when I enter the room, but the moment I put my hands near or inside his cage, say to change his water or move a toy, he goes into instant defence mode. He hisses, lunges, presses himself against the bars of his cage and goes absolutely manic until my hands retreat outside again. I’ve tried to lure him out by wearing gloves and holding branches out for him to perch on, but he seems even more frightened by these things than of my hands. So far the only thing he will accept is eating seed from my palm, which still requires whole minutes of coaxing, but if I move so much as a centimetre, he’ll snap at my fingers (and that little beak can pack a hard bite).
Is there any way that I can convince him that my hands are not a threat to him?

Best answer:

Answer by joewebb
I don’t think it is your hand.If i put gloves on my parrots go mad.Your parrot needs tamed that is all it is.If you had real hands it would be the same.If you get it tamed you will see he dosn’t matter.

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Taming Cockatiel to land on arm

This is me messing about with wall-e trying to get him to land on my arm and not my head :p. What better to tame him with songs from Sonic the hedgehog soundtrack

Taming the Cockatiel

She was bought as a present for me in August. She was a parent-reared aviary bred bird so a project for me to tame!! So far she will step up and sit on my hand without flying off, although she is still a little wary, but we’re getting there slowly!!
Video Rating: 3 / 5

Feathered Phonics DVD Taming Training and Tricks

Product Description
Millions Of people worldwide struggle with their parrots behavioral problems. And from this day forward there are no longer any excuses to have problems with your parrots. Chet and Dave Womach walk you through step by step as they take untamed, and untrained birds, and show you in real time the exact steps they used to tame and train their parrots into little star performers.

Please help taming a Cockatiel?

I’ve recently brought a Cockatiel (his name is jack and hes gorgeous) I’m told hes around 6 months old, and I’m guessing hes been raised by his mum.

Now, it sounds silly but I’m suffering from depression and I thought a bird would go along way to cheering me up! I really want the bird to sit on my shoulder during the day and just generally spend time flying around with me. Apparently they are quite affectionate birds!

At the moment jack seems terrified of me, he seems to panic if I’m too close to the cage and I get the feeling he does not like me. I spend alot of time with him, talking to him softly and whistling at him. I’ve tried to feed him millet spray though the cage but hes having none of it. He does, however, spend a lot of time watching me from his cage.

Basically, I really want to know if I’m going the right way about getting him to trust me enough to climb onto my finger? When I was changing his food the other day I accidentally brushed his tail he had no reaction and i made the mistake of attempting to stroke him, this sent him a little crazy in his cage, will he forget this “incident”?

I’ve also read that he will be easier to “tame” if I have his wings clipped, but I’m reluctant to do this as he was meant to fly and I’d hate to take that ability away from him.

I should say that I’ve only had the bird about five days, guess your going to laugh at this fact, am I expecting things to progress to quickly? how will I know when he trusts me enough to ‘Step Up’?

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