New to Cockatiels

[BlueBaby1023]

Hi all!

I recently joined here and posted in the intro forum, but haven't really posted since then.

Long story short, we are receiving a 7 year old male lutino cockatiel from my partner, Nathan's, coworker. It was her kids' pet, but now that they are all gone to college she doesn't want to care for him anymore, and he felt bad for the poor bird.

Neither of us have ever personally had birds, although I have a little bit of experience with budgies. We had planned on later in life getting a few birds, but a cockatiel wasn't on the list.

I have a few questions that didn't get answered on my intro thread, and I was hoping I could get better answers here.

The first, and I think is most important, is that I haven't gotten a clear answer on whether it's safe for him to live in our small pet room. We have a zoo here (15 current animals) of shelter pets or unwanted rescued animals, and we have an entire bedroom dedicated to the small pets. In there, we have a pair of rabbits, a pair of guinea pigs, and a pair of rats (although we may end up with more rats once we transition them into a larger cage).

Ideally we'd like him to be kept in the small pet room because we cannot keep him in a common space (5 cats that free range) and the only other space for him in our 4 bed house is in the spare bedroom as we have no space in our room, our pair of ferrets have free range of one room that will later be split between them and Fennec foxes, and the last room in the small pet room. Our spare room is intended for guests, so this is definitely not ideal but doable if it is not safe for him to be housed in the small pet room.

The main concern about housing him with the small pets for me is the ammonia. I know that birds (and all animals in general) are far more perceptive to smells than humans are. While it never smells like ammonia (urine) to me in the small animal room, I'm unsure if levels of ammonia that are undetectable to people are dangerous at all to birds because of their delicate respiratory system. In addition, I know dust in general is bad for birds, and it does get somewhat dusty in the small pet room when hay is being distributed to the guinea pigs and rabbits twice a day.

The other questions are just some recommendations for food pellets and toys. I'm sure he doesn't have a good diet right now, so I've been reading up on how to transition to chop and fresh foods, but I'm not sure what pellets are best to buy and what sort of toys to get him. I know mirrors are bad, so I've avoided those. We've just gotten him a few wicker/wooden toys so far, and are going to be getting him this cage:

http://www.amazon.com/Prevue-Produc...id=1421871525&sr=8-1&keywords=prevue+f40+cage

If there's anything else essential that I should get him, please let me know!

 

[Jaguar]

Welcome to AA and tank you for trying to give this guy a better home

Be very, very careful if you house birds in the same room as rats.... I had a friend's rats sneak out and kill her budgie. If he flies down and lands on the rats' cage, he could lose toes or a leg. The bird might find the presence of a predator stressful - so I would consider alternative places for his cage.

The Zupreem fruit pellets are a good start - my tiel prefers the itty bitty ones. Try pretending to eat some and then offering them to him - if he's not too shy of hands. From there, Roudybush or Harrison's are popular "premium" pellets. Tiels like veggies and greens, not so much fruit - anything with a stem is popular here (spinach, herbs) as well as broccoli and carrots.

I have that cage for my tiel and it's huge, but it's good if you don't expect he'll be out of the cage much. You will want to zip tie the feeder doors shut and perhaps look into additional locks for the main doors to prevent escapes.

My boy really likes shreddable toys - ones with corrugated cardboard and paper, especially. Soft woods like balsa or yucca are a hit too, as are any bark-y perches or branches he can pick at.

 

[BlueBaby1023]

Thank you.

Our rats' cage is escape proof so that they cannot get out and do the same to the guinea pigs or rabbits, or squeeze under the door and be eaten by a kitty. I've had rats for a long time and no breakouts in all the years I've kept them. If he does stress out in there, we can certainly move him though!

I don't know if he's flighted or not. I doubt it, honestly, because by the sound of it they're keeping him in a cage more suited to a budgie than a cockatiel (around 1x2x3ft LWH).

That's why we were looking at that cage for him. Although we will definitely have him out of the cage as much as possible, I am a graduate student and Nathan is a nurse that works a lot of overtime (we just bought a house), so the time he is at home is limited, and I am in and out with my classes. We were already considering getting locks for the cage because we figured that it's be better safe than sorry.

Thank you for the pellet and toy suggestions! One of the wicker toys we bought has some shredded multicolored paper attached, so I hope he likes it!

 

[cassiesdad]

Congrats on the new addition! Our tiels do fine with the fruity Zupreem pellets. I like to give fresh veggies and leafy greens,also. Green and red peppers are relished here.
As like @Jaguar's tiels, shreddables are a big hit here. We also enjoy swings-our guys will swing in unison for hours.
We have two guinea pigs in the same room as our littles. It's been that way for some time,and there seems to be no problem with ammonia build-up. The key is to mantain good clean standards, of course.

Good luck with the new guy...PS.-we'd love to see pics!

 

[BlueBaby1023]

That's good to hear! We definitely keep it clean, I hate urine smells, so it never goes more than 2 weeks without full cleans for everyone, but the rabbit and guinea pig litterboxes are dumped far more frequently than the full cleans are done. The rats get full cleaned more frequently, they always get their cage bars greasy within a matter of a week.

I'll share a picture as soon as we get him. It should be sometime next week, as this coming week we'll be settling in four bottle baby goats and some Orpington/Wyandotte chicks to the farm.

 

[MandaExotics]

My tiel does well on Roudybush with Volkman seed. She love bean sprouts and playing with Romaine leaves mostly. Along with swings, some of the rope ladders (I think that's what they're called) can be fun for some tiels.

 

[sunnysmom]

People have different opinions on "best" diet for tiels. I think tiels still need seeds in their diet and that an all pellet diet can be too hard on their kidneys just as an all seed diet is bad for their livers. I shoot for about 50% seeds, 15% pellets and the rest vegetables, rice etc. My tiel likes nutriberries and pellet berries but is not a big fan of regular pellets. Tiels tend not to be fruit eaters. So I suggest focusing on vegetables. Also, you may want to find out what seeds/pellets your tiel is currently eating and keep him on the same diet and slowly switch him over then to whatever you want him to eat. It's best when bringing a new tiel home to try to keep their routine as best you can and then start making changes gradually. Find out if he gets covered when he sleeps, etc. And thanks for giving this tiel a good home.

 

[BlueBaby1023]

Sorry it's been a bit of a while, we had a disaster with the chicks because the Post Office messed up.

At any rate, on a happier note, we are getting him this Friday. The cage we ordered should be here tomorrow. We picked up some of the suggested toys, and I'm sure he's coming with some in his current cage. We got the Zupreem pellets, although I still don't know much about him other than his name is "Kisses". I've been trying to get Nathan to ask her questions but time for them to talk at work is few and far between, and she doesn't answer her phone.

 

[ArowanaLover]

a few first day tips are:
1. the bird will be stressed, do not put your hand in the cage (and if it seems ready 1 session of hand feeding on a stick, this shows that you are its caregiver)
2. Talk in soothing tones to it, try to calm it down
3. keep the room it is in quiet and stress free
4. I kept nigel in a small cage on his first days so i could get him used to me easier, they are only about $30.

 

[BlueBaby1023]

Kisses arrived today, and he's doing remarkably well. We were going to leave him in his original cage, but it just seemed way too tiny. It's about 2.5ft tall 1ft diameter cylindrical cage. So we transferred him into the new cage using the perch he was on.



Him in his new cage:


I was rather surprised when he not only started begging for head scratches but jumped on my hand to cuddle and preen. He's rather sweet and doesn't seem all that stressed given the situation. I'll have to watch him closely, though. The previous owner mentioned he had pulled out his tail and some wing feathers after her kids left for college. They seem to be growing back in okay, though.





In case you guys wanted to see the rest of the room, you can see the rat cage behind his old cage, and here they are taking an afternoon nap.


You can also see the side of the guinea pigs cage on the floor with the brown and green dino fleece, and they were holed up napping too so I didn't get a close shot of them.

The bunnies have free range of the floor.



Anyways, the first day with him seems to be a success. No bites, and he's warming up to us pretty quick.

 

[Jaguar]

Aah happy rats in a hammock I had rats for many years before my birds.

Please either toss that round cage or use it for a plant stand - in any case just make sure it is never used for birds again

He sounds super sweet though, congrats!

 

[cassiesdad]

Kisses is so handsome...and I love his name...

 

[CeciliaZ]

Kisses is beautiful!

 

[Princessbella]

Awww, don't you know that the purpose of humans is to give scritches? I'm glad that kisses has settled in so well. He is gorgeous. I love the pictures of the rats and bunnies. You have quite a menagerie there, don't you?

 

[MandaExotics]

Kisses looks beautiful, your cage is much nicer as well in terms of size
Congrats!

 

[Monica]

I second turning the old cage into a planter!!!

His tail feathers appear to be broken, so I doubt they are "growing back", but I'm sure with more room and a molt, they'll be gorgeous once again!


Thank you for providing him with a safe place to land!

 

[BlueBaby1023]

Thanks everyone.

I had heard those cylindrical cages are bad for their mental health, so I was glad to get him out of it. I don't know what the truth is about them, but it doesn't seem big enough for a hummingbird, let alone a cockatiel.

I also underestimated the toys I thought he might have, so his cage looks pretty bare with just the three perches the cage came with and the five that we got him. All he had was a single swing perch in his old cage. Time to go shopping online!

By growing back I meant I thought he may be molting. He has some small bare spots and seems to be losing quite a bit of feathers on me when I give him his head scratches (though, I don't know what's normal), and he doesn't seem to be pulling them out. One tail feather is longer than the rest and has a casing on it towards the base, but I'm not familiar with feather growth so I don't know what that means. I also can't get a close look at it because he's sweet, but I'm still a stranger to him.

Is it normal for him to turn his head upside down to press it against my thumb when he's standing on my index finger? He seems to want scratches and twists and turns his head when I scratch his head and his eyes half close in what seems like happiness to me, but I don't get the upside down head thing.

Oh, and yes, we have a menagerie living inside. He makes number 16, as outside of the rats, guinea pigs, and rabbits, we also have ferrets, cats, and dogs.

 

[Monica]

Maybe he wants you to scritch his chin?

Casey does it, too.

 

[Jaguar]

Yup, my Phoenix's favorite scritch spot is right under the chin, where the feathers sort of end - he'll flip his head like Casey so I can get a better angle.

 

[BlueBaby1023]

Ah, okay! I'll see if he wants his chin scratched next time he does it.