# Cockatiels?



## shoreset (Dec 27, 2009)

I've wanted one for ages and I will eventually get one or two lol.

I've got lots of different books on them that I'm working my way through etc, but there are somethings books dont cover.

What are yours like?
What's the best cage for a 'tiel? (will be given lots of out of cage flight time)

How much roughly does your tiel cost you a month?


and anything else you want to share










thanks


----------



## Myjb23 (Oct 14, 2009)

I have two tiels, a lutino female (Sweet Pea) and a grey male (James). Both were parent reared in an aviary and they are SO different. Sweet Pea has tamed down so well and is as sweet and loving as any hand reared baby. James is evil, wont tolerate any handling and will attack if i try to catch him :lol2: If I just owned James i'd be put off tiels for life, but i absolutely adore Sweet Pea :flrt: If you want a pet its best to pay a bit more for a hand reared one I think.

I have mine in a Montana San Remo cage. They do need a fairly large cage as they are very active, but its important to make sure the bar spacing isnt too wide.

Mine cost very little per month, never had any vets visits with either of them. I buy a bag of good quality tiel mix from my local parrot shop (about £10 worth) and that lasts about 2 months. Neither will take any fruit and veg but I do offer them some each day in the hopes they will :blush: They have calcium supplement (calivet) but that only costs about £10 a bottle and lasts forever! 

Here's mine:










Sweet Pea :flrt:


----------



## shoreset (Dec 27, 2009)

Myjb23 said:


> I have two tiels, a lutino female (Sweet Pea) and a grey male (James). Both were parent reared in an aviary and they are SO different. Sweet Pea has tamed down so well and is as sweet and loving as any hand reared baby. James is evil, wont tolerate any handling and will attack if i try to catch him :lol2: If I just owned James i'd be put off tiels for life, but i absolutely adore Sweet Pea :flrt: If you want a pet its best to pay a bit more for a hand reared one I think.
> 
> I have mine in a Montana San Remo cage. They do need a fairly large cage as they are very active, but its important to make sure the bar spacing isnt too wide.
> 
> ...


 
Your birdies are stunning :flrt:

What is the ideal bar spacing? I've read different sizes at different places, I will be getting the largest cage I can afford (and I will be saving up to get a good one) but all the large parrot cages I've seen have wide bar spacing 

I'll be waiting untill I find a good breeder and probably want a handreared one. I know that I want a male as I hopefully want to teach my future birdy to whistle a happy little tune :blush:


----------



## Zoo-Man (Apr 12, 2008)

Certainly DO NOT buy a Cockatiel that has been wing-clipped, & DO NOT wing-clip a Cockatiel! Many books still recommend this barbaric practice. Cockatiels are very strong flyers & in the wild would fly many miles daily in search of food. They need to fly in order to exercise & they will become obese & get lipomas if they are fed a fatty diet & not allowed to behave naturally.


----------



## shoreset (Dec 27, 2009)

Zoo-Man said:


> Certainly DO NOT buy a Cockatiel that has been wing-clipped, & DO NOT wing-clip a Cockatiel! Many books still recommend this barbaric practice. Cockatiels are very strong flyers & in the wild would fly many miles daily in search of food. They need to fly in order to exercise & they will become obese & get lipomas if they are fed a fatty diet & not allowed to behave naturally.


I'm of the opinion that if you want a pet that cant fly......... dont get a bird.

one of the books I have it cockatiels for dummies and it says in there that if you dont clip their wings they'll turn nasty and untame, and that you must clip their wings so they rely on you for transport and so will be nice to you :censor:. If someone chopped my legs of (to stop my primary mode of transport I wouldn't like them very much at all)


----------



## Tomcat (Jul 29, 2007)

Zoo-Man said:


> Certainly DO NOT buy a Cockatiel that has been wing-clipped, & DO NOT wing-clip a Cockatiel! Many books still recommend this barbaric practice. Cockatiels are very strong flyers & in the wild would fly many miles daily in search of food. They need to fly in order to exercise & they will become obese & get lipomas if they are fed a fatty diet & not allowed to behave naturally.


Agree'd...


----------



## Darklas (Mar 25, 2009)

I don't think it's necessary to get a hand-reared cockatiel. As long as you get it while he is still youngish and spend lots of time on him he should calm down just fine. Obv some birds have different personalities but it's not too difficult.  
Hand-reared birds are hard to come by unless they are parrots and I think aviary raised birds are just as great. 

Up to you of course.  
Also just want to say I think cockatiels make great pets! But once you teach that bird to whistle a tune it may be difficult to get him to shut up! lol.


----------



## annsimpson1 (Mar 23, 2008)

if you want a really tame bird then go for a hand reared the only problem I've found is that they are human bonded and will not usually relate to another bird whether its male or female. However I have two handreared and they are happy to live together just don't preen eaxh other etc they wait for us to do that, when we picked our first bird he was about 12 weeks old and the breeder said that he would pick us and he did. Of all the youngsters he had this particular one came straight over and sat on my shoulder, twice he did this and the others never bothered so that was the one for us. They only seem to learn words/songs etc when they are young and it becomes harder to teach them when they are older, ours come out every evening after dinner and they know the time to come out and go back in when they are ready again usually the same time when they are covered up to sleep. Have a good look at the various foods that they can have as there's a very wide variety not just seed and if you want to feed pellets I suggest you do so from the start as its hard to get them to change later, my male is the more playfull one and the females don't whistle or talk or at least thats what i've found, its the male that like the toys particulary bells which he sits with his head in (like a hat). Do look for a hand reared youngster though its far easier to bond with and you won't be disapointed and get the biggest cage you have room for, they love to rummage around on the floor so make sure the floor isn't cage bars.


----------



## Myjb23 (Oct 14, 2009)

I would always advised hand reared as a pet as you know for sure that it will accept people. Like with my two, both had a very similar start but James just will not tolerate me handling him at all, whereas Sweet Pea loves to come out with me. If you go for parent reared, you could end up with one like James, not good for a pet you want to handle :lol2:

I've never found that my hand reared birds have trouble with bonding with other birds at all though. I have a hand reared conure who I recently paired up with a parent reared conure and they are inseperable :2thumb:


----------



## Zoo-Man (Apr 12, 2008)

shoreset said:


> I'm of the opinion that if you want a pet that cant fly......... dont get a bird.
> 
> one of the books I have it cockatiels for dummies and it says in there that if you dont clip their wings they'll turn nasty and untame, and that you must clip their wings so they rely on you for transport and so will be nice to you :censor:. If someone chopped my legs of (to stop my primary mode of transport I wouldn't like them very much at all)


Jees, it should have been called "Cockatiels BY Dummies!" :devil:


----------



## tinks30 (Nov 2, 2008)

I have two teil`s One i had first had been kept with anouther bird and will come and sit on you but hates being touched, Then i got a female to kept him company she also came from a home as an older bird, She likes having her head stroked, but not being picked up, i have had them together and they are each getting better at having the thing they don`t like being done Ie:- rosie will let me pick her up but doesn`t reall like it and teok, will sometimes let me stroke him. The cage i have is like this:- PARROT / BIRD CAGE LARGE on eBay (end time 25-Jan-11 13:50:25 GMT)
But i would rather have this one:-
NEW PARROT PARAKEET FINCHES BUDGIE CAGE 807 on eBay (end time 07-Feb-11 14:48:27 GMT)

I will be paying the extra to get a hand reared one too next time unless i can buy an egg, hatch and rear it myself. 
I am not sure how much i spent but it isn`t much. Northern parrots does a good range of toys!


----------



## saraheh (Oct 11, 2009)

I have a 9 month old lutino male cockatiel named Ziggie. He was hand reared along with his brother as the parents rejected the eggs it was a bad breeding season last year for birds alot of birds were rejecting their egg's. The lady I got my boy from had been breeding and rearing birds for over 20 years. I had done my reasearch first reading books joining tiel forums. I made sure I found an excellent breeder as I wouldn't buy from a petshop they are mass bred and the majority very weak/ill also I wouldn't buy a bird now unless it had a ring on as that indivdually identifies them I looked into insurance for Ziggie too there are only 2 companies who insure birds I found the best one who was the first ever bird insurance company. Parrots magazine is good for info aswell. 
Find a good avian vet my vet is an avian vet already so I didn't have a problem there. Meet your tiel at the breeders you should be able to meet them/take photos. Should be weaned and eating food for atleast a few weeks or so before you pick your bird up. There are various colours as you know you have to work out which you would like. I either wanted a lutino or a pied so a lutino it was also males talk and interact more than females. 
My boy talks, can put words together to make a sentance, whistle several different things including bring out the branston. He can meow, woof, cuckoo, collar dove sound, chicken which I taught him to do it's so funny he even moves like a chicken, when you stir a spoon he does his own version. 
Ziggie gets a free fly several times a day we have to shut some doors as we have cats. I will not have his wings clipped I personally don't agree with it they should be able to stretch and fly. 

Food I use Harrisons bird food as recommended by my vet it's little balls which contain everything they need also no seeds/husks involved. There is 2 types of food high potency fine it's for birds under a year old as it builds them up and then after a year old they then go onto adult lifetime fine. I like the food no coloured bits thinking it's doing the bird good when really it's just food colouring, it contains no preservatives/additives. 
Cage wise I got from my local garden centre it had a big plastic bottom and a wire top basically the bigger the better. I use sand sheets with sand ontop and a pot of grit I put in a dish in the cage. I use different perches tiels love the rope perches I bend mine up and down, I have 2 that came with the cage and 2 branch perches I got from eBay it gives them a choice. I have a mirror, bells, big parrot toys and smaller toys changing them for other toys is good too that way they don't get bored of them. I also have a cuttlefish and mineral block in the cage.


----------



## saraheh (Oct 11, 2009)

Ziggie will sit on your fingers, shoulders, head. He shouts for my sister says her name he seems to fancy her lol. At nine months old ziggie has reached puberty earlier he started at 7 months old and can go on for months they start pecking you and getting an attitude just like teenagers. At night I cover ziggies cage up with a big sheet or blanket not too thick though, it's just like us getting into bed some people cover their birds others don't I definatly would. 8 hours tiels like to have, mine goes to bed about 10pm and up about 7am they don't sleep all that time but it's quiet resting. 

Will write some more soon.


----------



## rachel001 (Jan 28, 2009)

My parents have a cockatiel called Lilly who has since turned out to be a male! We got him in 2000 from a local pet shop and he wasn't hand reared but was used to people. 

He was really shy at first but within a week he was used to us and is now the soppiest little guy ever. 

He isn't clipped and comes out every evening for a fly around the living room (which is quite big so he has plenty of flying space). I wouldn't get one that has been clipped or clip one as I think they should be able to fly, just be careful not to leave windows open etc. Lilly whistles and speaks and loves having the back of his neck tickled. 

I would definitely recommend them as a pet as he barely costs anything to feed and is a lovely little bird. The only expensive bit is the cage but if you get a second hand one and clean it up it probably wouldn't even be that much. We have Lilly in a smallish parrot cage. I mean it would be a little small for a parrot but is quite big for a small bird like a cocktiel.


----------

