New member, baby cockatiel....need advice

[featherfriend977]

Hello. I have a 2 year old cockatiel named Roco who is a male and recently I got a female cockatiel who is 3 months old and name her Reese. Reese and Roco did well on their first meeting and they chose to stay in one cage after. I don’t have any issues with their bond but the issue is that Reese is young and was hand fed off on sunflower seeds and millets. I did not have this problem with Roco since Roco never liked seeds since the begining (I got them both from the same breeder). I am having a very very hard time converting Reese to pellets and veggies. She constantly screams for food if I don’t give her sunflower seeds and if I let her eat as many as sunflower seeds as she wants, she ends up getting dehydrated...? I think she is over feeding on sunflower seeds and in morning, she has watery poop. She is perfectly healthy and the only issue is with diet. Can someone give me tips?
Since they’re in the same cage, Reese will taste what Roco eats (and Roco eats everything) but she only does that. Taste. Afterwards she starts screaming for seeds again. Today I did not let give free access to sunflower seeds and she got veggies in the morning (which she ate only a bit) a bit of corn in the evening (ate a bit) and in dinner I let her eat sunflower seeds (limited). However she constantly screams all day for seeds and I know this is not her attention screaming but more of a “give me food human!!!!” screaming. Can anyone give me tips? Thank you.

 

[Txcockatielguy]

The fact that you have a 3 month old tiel eating any veggies at all is a GOOD thing! I would suggest small bits of broccoli. Some of mine love it, and others won't touch it but it's a great food for them. As much as you say Reese screams for sunflower seeds, I would go easy on those. If your feeding Roco a good balanced diet of pellets mixed with a (FEW) seeds, sooner or later I think Reese will come around. As for the screaming, that may or may NOT be the case regarding food. It could very well be that she just wants attention. At any rate, hang in there and good luck with her.

 

[Laurasea]

Burds poop can be a little watery right after eating veggies. It can also indicate something wrong Iike an infiction ... .might be well worth a vet visit .
Also worth doing some observation of how tge two are interacting in the cage. Sometimes it seems tgey are doing fine, but one us hogging all the resources. Yiur older one coukd be bullying her and tgst can be subtle it doesn't have to be big fights at all. It can be that she moves away from goid and water beca he is older a d tge boss.
A burd doing a lot of screaming is usually an unhappy frustrated burd....

 

[featherfriend977]

Good news! She seems to now be eating a lot more of whatever I feed her. I still give her sunflower seeds (as snacks) once a day. Because Reese is so infatuated with Roco (she really is!) she seems to follow him around everywhere and copy whatever he does. I never had a problem training Roco since he was always extroverted and he learned step up within half an hour of coming home. Reese, on the other hand, is not trusting at all. Both birds get time outside cage. It seems she is still fearful....She seems to like my younger sister more and when my younger sister takes her out, she will step up but because she is afraid she will scream???? She will not fly away, she will stay on you but still scream. When Roco sees me and climbs on me, she follows him and climbs up on me too but when she gets close to my face she starts screaming again??? Roco thinks he did something wrong and moves away and she moves away too. It took me two days but she is eating out of my hand. That’s all progress so far.