Confusing Cockatiel

[littlebirds]

Sorry this is very long, but I wanted to make sure I included enough info as possible.

We've now had our cockatiel around four months and for the most part she's really well behaved. She steps up, is very relaxed and spends most of her day with us. When we first got her she had a bit of an issue with being loud but she now is quiet (unless we leave the room for a few minutes, in which case she contact calls while we're away). She knows when we're leaving the house and is quiet, normal chirping and whistling aside.

However, she is acting a bit aggressive in some situations recently which has us very confused.

If she manages to see her reflection in something, she instantly becomes very bitey and no matter how much we ignore it, she continues to nip until we can get her to step up. We do not let her around mirrors and reflective objects now, we know what triggers this behaviour so we keep her away.

I know this is down to her thinking there's another bird in her reflection - which we can control - but she's been acting the same around her cage, too - if she knows it's bedtime (we have a routine for her which she is now familiar with) or if she knows she's about to go in her cage, she becomes reluctant to step up and bites. But if she's playing on top of her cage and we try to get her to step up, she bites too!

She seems to not want to be in her cage but when we try to take her off it or out of it using our hands she doesn't want to. Once she's actually in her cage she's a bit more vocal but will play with toys and eat. At bedtime if she protests going in it can be a challenge but we always put her back in by hand. We have never used gloves or towelled her. She hisses if we go near the cage when we cover her for the night, but as soon as she's covered we can hear her happily grinding her beak!

She is flighted so she can fly to and from her cage freely while she is out, and sometimes flies back to her cage to play with toys. To bring her out of her cage we just open the door. Outside of her cage she has a playstand or she sits with us.

Just for clarification, we never react to her bites and only remove our hands when she stops biting. She occasionally draws blood, and seems undeterred when we don't move our hands or react or make noise. Bribery with treats isn't working on her cage either, she lunges at any offered food and ignores it as fingers seem to be much tastier.

Oh, and I keep referring to her as 'she' but we suspect she's male due to her vocalisations and her aggression defending her cage. Her first moult ended a few weeks ago. On a normal day she gets 12.5 hours awake and 11.5 hours of covered cage time. She also gets anywhere from 6 to 10 hours of outside time a day. It's rare she ever has less than that.

We really want to stop her aggression as it's stressful for her and we'd hate for it to break our bond with her. Aside from bedtime or if we have to put her inside for a while, she is very sweet and cuddly, quiet and happy to play. This behaviour only happens for a few minutes at a time but it's still not ideal.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do to help her? Thank you!

 

[weco]

How old is your 'tiel? How many homes has she had? What type of training have you & your feathered friend been working on?

I'm not so sure that your 'tiel wouldn't like to spend more time out of his/her cage.....why is she kept on such a structured in-cage out-of-cage regime? Cockatiels in the wild don't live in canopied rain forests where it's dark over 12 hours a day.....covering a bird that is in the same room or can hear its flock enjoying themselves doesn't mean it is sleeping, even if you do hear it grinding its beak.....

Until you get his/her socialization worked out, you can always turn out the lights to pick him/her up & put back in the cage.....

 

[littlebirds]

She's less than a year old, and this is her first home.

We've kept her on a structured 12 hour routine as to be honest, it's what we've read was best to do. We read that 12 hour nights were good for tiels and if cockatiels have longer daylight hours it instigates breeding behaviour. With her already acting aggressively around her cage we weren't sure if extending her days would be the right decision. How many hours do you think is better? Do you think she should be awake longer?

At night when we cover her she grinds her beak for a while, we don't hear anything else afterwards so we assume she's sleeping. There's no noise of her peeping, or wanting to be out, eating, or moving around the cage.

She's been quite tame right from the beginning and the only training we've really had to focus on was to stop her attention screaming (ignoring her, leaving the room, not coming back until she's quiet) and positively reinforcing things like stepping up, playing with toys, being quiet, and being friendly.

I suppose this is probably part of the problem - we've never really had to train her in socialisation as she's always been pretty well behaved and friendly. She goes to new people without any hesitation and takes food from them too. It's just at the end of the day when her behaviour changes. Morning, afternoon, and evening, she is friendly and affectionate. It's just when she has to go back in for a while that it changes.

Is it okay to make a room dark and pick up a bird? I'd be worried this would scare her if cockatiels can't see well in the dark

 

[SandyBee]

You can give a nighttime treat when you put her back in the cage, something she likes.
Try and make her cage a fun place.
10-12 hours sleep is good for birdies but you might want to see if she would prefer to go to bed a little later, she could always get up later.

 

[littlebirds]

So like a special treat that she only gets when she goes back in? I'll give that a try, thank you!

I normally wake her at 7.30 when I'm up and getting ready for work. If letting her stay awake later is going to help her be less stressed about bedtime or aggressive around her cage then I'm all for it. I just want to do what's best for her. If I can help her with her cage aggression issues then I can be up earlier and she can have more out of cage time before I leave for work. I'd be willing to keep her up later at night if it'll work too.

 

[SandyBee]

It might help, sometimes a small change can make a world of difference.
Some birds do fine on 10 hours sleep.
Ours at home get about 10 during the week, since I have to wake them in the morning but we all sleep in on weekends.
Also we don't have a super structured bedtime, some nights they go at 7pm others 10pm depends on what we are doing and how tired they are.
We always give them a cashew at night time which they happily go eat.
Another thing we do is when we put them in their cage with the cashew, we wait a little bit before putting the cover over.

 

[SandyBee]

Another thought too, tiels can be prone to night frights.
It is not necessary to cover a bird for sleep. You could try leaving her uncovered or only partially covered.
My amazon likes his blanky, but like the front of the cage uncovered so he can see out.

 

[weco]

Sandy's given you some good information.....

I don’t know if you remember back in the early 80s, when the internet was just beginning to go mainstream, there were a few websites that popped up…converts from the bulletin boards that were the information mainstays at the time…..well, when the various authors of the time learned that they had a new potential client base & information distribution system in this new internet, their thoughts & ideas became the immediate became “the” information to follow, then, as the internet exploded & free websites became available, this early information was simply cut & pasted to anyone’s website who wanted to have their own webpage & claim their 15 minutes in the spotlight…..

As more information about parrots hit the internet, whether it was right, wrong, taken out of context, skewed, verifiable or not, people extrapolated what they wanted, from wherever they found it & it found its way into beliefs that it was etched in stone…..

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that even the websites of respected veterinarians may offer incorrect information…not intentionally, but normally because someone in their staff has posted it or they have purchased canned media material for a veterinarian’s website…..unless you are prepared to do your own verification, there is a pretty good chance the information you just read originated in the 50’ or 60’s when the collection of parrot data started to become a thing to do…..

I was naïve thirty some odd years ago & believed most of what I read back then also, until I realized some of the information just didn’t gel with other information I’d read and realized there is no one-size-fits-all source of information and what works with your bird may not work with my bird…..

Heck, there’s a guy in India, who does not own & to my knowledge, has never owned the first parrot, who, for the past 3-4 years, employed a covey of clippers, people who find tidbits of parrot information, right, wrong or otherwise, then a bank of script writers put this information into some semblance of readability and he sells his tips & techniques as a newsletter about how to care for your parrot…..it’s feathered his bank account to somewhere over 2 million dollars and to think he doesn’t clean the first bird cage or worry about getting bitten by an upset parrot…..

 

[littlebirds]

Thank you SandyBee! We're going to try giving her one of her favourites only when she has to go back into her cage. And we may try her with cashews, she hasn't tried those yet! Are they your birds' favourite?

Yeah, we never fully cover her, she can always see out of the cage at the front. Then overnight she always has her night light just in case. The stories about cockatiel night frights are terrifying.

Weco, I really appreciate the information you've provided, and it's sad that a lot of sites out there are giving outdated advice. I read one that said during spring birds should be completely covered for 14 hours. Another said cockatiels are fine on all seed diets. Others say chocolate is fine as a treat for birds in small quantities. If we all believed everything we read online we'd all be very naive and inconsistent, and our birds would certainly suffer as a result.

But, before making our decision on getting a cockatiel, we researched. A lot. For years. We didn't just google "how long do birds sleep", or other relevant points, pick a site, then just go with whatever the first one said. We checked up on many websites including many different vets, forums like these, cockatiel breeders and dedicated sites. And in the case of resting times for cockatiels, the majority of them seemed to say 10 to 12 hours of sleep, which is why we went with that.

We know that online advice is not one size fits all and as you've said yourself, a lot of it is conflicting, so we have gone with what most advice sites, cockatiel owners, and such have said.

Based on your advice we're going to be changing her sleep times and letting her sleep for 10 hours instead. More time with our bird can never be a bad thing. Thank you for your responses.

However I'm not so sure her biting and aggression is caused by her sleep routine as this has not changed since we first got her. It has only occurred roughly since her moult ended a few weeks back. I am concerned that she does show signs of cage aggression, with her not stepping up when standing on top of her cage and trying to 'defend' it from us.

 

[coltfire]

can i ask what type of tiel you have any chance of a pic, unless its a white face i can sex it for you, all i need is a pic of the underside of tail feathers, if no pic tell me if she has black bars across the under side of her tail feathers , but if she is a white face only a vet can tell you or another tiel that you no the sex of. lol

 

[coltfire]

as for the biting if the time you spend playing with her has dropped or if she is watching you and your partner cuddling it may just be a jealousy thing but tiel do demand attention all the time .

 

[littlebirds]

Thank you for replying coltfire!

She's a pied cockatiel, I don't have an image but here's a similar one from the internet. She has no black bars underneath her tail, checked her tail feathers from her moult and her current ones. Pied seem difficult to sex. Maybe finding another tiel will help like you say haha!

As for the playing, if we are ever in the house, she's out with us, so she hasn't had a lack of playtime recently. Her routine has not changed recently. My boyfriend is very much her best friend as he's around more than I am but she's been acting aggressively towards both of us if she is around her cage. For the rest of the day - like, 95% of the day - she is affectionate towards both of us and will gladly spend time with either of us.

 

[forbey]

Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way ... you said you never had to provide socialization training because she was so well behaved. Regardless of what you do, how you behave, what schedule you are working on, it is ALL socialization training! If I do something wrong (even if only wrong to Skittles) it will solicit a prescribed response, the more I do it, even if I don't know it, the more permanent the response will be.

The problem is seldom the bird (or the dog, cat, horse, etc.). Usually it is the owner. Train the owner and the owner will train the bird.

Best of luck,

Forbey

 

[littlebirds]

Thanks Forbey!

How can we improve her socialisation around the cage? She's perfectly well behaved until she is in that area. It's when she starts defending it from us, or refuses to go in that things become problematic.

Is touch training a good method here? Should we be trying to bring her out on a perch instead of just letting her come out in her own time?

I should probably mention that this is not every day. Some days she goes in her cage no problems. She steps in from our hands happily. But, if she's got it in her head she doesn't want to - that's where the problem starts.

We only ever cage her if we have to - to go to work, or cook, or have to leave the room for a minute. We don't bring her in and out repeatedly - generally if she comes out she will be out for a minimum of an hour.

 

[coltfire]

ok you do have a girl if there are no bars, and if its just around the cage and only when you are putting her away, whats that tell you, she does not want to go in or she is protecting her area, did you say you had a sleep cage, if not it may be an idea, a smaller cage, does she have a hammock/sleepy hole to sleep in.

 

[coltfire]

im buying 4 more tiels next week, will post pics once i get them also 6 more keets

 

[MonicaMc]

Here's photos of my pied hen. She has the spots on flight feathers (that are not pied) and the bars on her tail feathers (although not as pronounced as in my other hens). She also has bars on her rump feathers.