FINCHforum

Hey guys it's me Nick again. I wasn't sure what catergory to put this in so I chose here. Today I come to you guys with a question not about my finches but about my cockatiels. I have two male cockatiels. One is named Union and is about 15 years old or so (as a kid growing up he has been around and possibly a few years before me) and the other one is named Spike who is about 5 years old or so (me and my family got him about 6 months ago). For the past couple months I have been working with Spike to the best of my ability to tame him because one he is younger and two so he will stop trying to bite our fingers off. I haven't really tried working with Union because he's so old and he is really shy. I came to you guys hoping you could help me hand tame them so they are both nicer and so we can hold them. Can you guys please help me with this? Thanks in advance.

This is the best advice I have found. It works for all birds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjZIF-knzU0

Sheather
Thanks for one resource but that gives just the outline. I was hoping you guys could give me step by step instructions and I could try recording my progress with my cockatiels.

The video does go step by step, so I don't know what you want.
The only way you will tame your birds is with a lot of patience and millet. Forcing them will make them more fearful. You shouldn't expect them to be cuddly hand-tame pets like hand-raised birds would be, but you may get them to sit on your hand to eat.

Sheather
Ok. Thankfully Spike is already used to me and comes to the bars of his cage. I just want him to be hand tame. Thanks.



Anyone else got any tips? how about you fraza

Good news. This morning I started working around the house and decided to spend some quality alone time with my cockatiels. Union like normal wanted nothing to do with me besides doing his food and water. In the meantime I decided to try and bond some more with him. I grabbed my gloves and had them nearby in case I needed to use them. Then I grabbed a stack of millet and opened the big door of his cage. I then took a couple of his perches and attached them to the cage so they extended outwards. Then as I sat there and talked to him and whistling back and forth between us. Long story short I was able to use the millet to coax him out of his cage by his will. He wasn't used to being outside his cage as he hadn't been out of his cage in God knows how long. But when he did come out on the larger perch I held up the millet (which I had taken out earlier and also used to help coax him to come out of his cage) and let him chew away a decent little portion of it to reward him for his good behavior. After I pulled the millet stalk back down and set it beside me I was hoping he would stay out on the porch where I had coaxed him to but he had other thoughts and pratically ran back into his cage which he knew as a safe place to go. So I gave him the rest of the stalk of millet and started putting the perches I had taken out of his cage back in his cage where they belonged and while I was doing that he nearly bit my hand but in his defense he probably thought my hand was a small bush of 5 millet stalks (of a different kind he thought he had never tried before) and my palm and the back of my hand was the bush part so I just told him no because he didn't really know better. I'm thinking of getting some perches to attach to the outside of his cage so we can try more bonding. So hope you guys appreciate the update and any feedback and comments are welcome.

I am going to move this topic to all things hookbill section. Site related is for questions regarding the actual website. Thanks!

delray
Ok thanks. I wasn't sure where it should go. Thanks.