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Cockatiel Has No Ability to be in Cage

Devin

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@PufF Your comment asking how we knew they were bonded made me think quite a bit, so I tried an experiment today. I moved Russet's cage into another room (separated by two doors) and then brought him there, leaving Baby with my girlfriends GCC in the living room (separate cages). I expected immediate and constant contact calling until they were brought back together, but they really surprised me by simply being calm and quiet. They called a bit as I was taking Russet out of the room, but as soon as both doors were closed, they both sat calmly in their own cages. Baby acted very much like he did before we brought Russet to the home and Russet was uncharacteristically quiet. This continued for several hours, with both occasionally making happy singing at different objects and eating treats in their cage. Anyone who has experience with separating bonded/unbonded cockatiels, what type of behavior would you observe and how would you interpret what happened today?
 

itzmered

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You mentioned he likes chewing the baseboards. Get him some wood toys. I didn’t see much for wood toys in the pictures. Sounds like they did good separated so that might be a clue to keep them apart for awhile
 

elitys

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Their personality changes just by separating them today have been baffling. They do a few contact calls once the other leaves the room, but it stops after like 30 seconds. Then, Baby starts perching on Devin, foraging by himself, being fluffy and taking naps on people, and he even let me pick him up and went on my shoulder.

We did not get much time to get to know Russet before he was introduced to Baby, and now that they're apart, Russet's personality is SHINING. I went to hang out with him in the bathroom (which is where he is with his cage right now) and he was being such a charmer. He flew next to me and started singing to me, tapping his beak on his perch, and asked for kisses with his little kissy camera noise and heart wings.

I can't believe what's going on. Who are these strange birds and where are Baby and Russet???
 

PufF

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Wow, no clue what’s going on but good ending I suppose. Keep this going for a few days and if they still continue to be quiet I suppose we got it!
Good luck!
 

elitys

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Wow, no clue what’s going on but good ending I suppose. Keep this going for a few days and if they still continue to be quiet I suppose we got it!
Good luck!
I mean, the issue isn't necessarily solved, we just have a temporary fix for the screaming problem. Russet can't really stay in the bathroom forever, but now that we aren't dealing with constant screaming, we can begin to try out different things. We have a couple of ideas to try and observe the way the birds behave.
  • Keeping Russet's cage in a separate room and allowing him and Baby to interact only during out of cage time. We still have a problem with them being pretty unmanageable when they're out together (trying to find nest spots, becoming defensive over certain areas, and constantly trying to get to new areas, some of which we would like them not to be at). We want to see how much that problematic behavior persists when they are separated at other times.
  • Keeping Russet and Baby totally separated for some time. We want to see if Baby begins to bond again with Devin and we want to learn more about Russet as a single bird. We want to see if problematic behavior begins to arise because of the long-term separation, or if things are better off by them being apart. During this period, I specifically want to consider Baby's plucking habits and whether or not they increase by not having Russet around. (He still plucks with Russet around, and we had a giardia test, negative. If it started as medical, it is behavioral now.) I also want to see if they appear to be happy with just humans, or in Baby's case, with just Poppy and humans around. And I want to see if they continue to engage in foraging, playing with toys, and other content bird behaviors while in their cages separated or if it's merely a change of scenery causing this nice period of calm.
If the birds appear to do better behaviorally, hormonally, and emotionally when they're separated over an extended period of time, we may consider rehoming Russet. We can learn more about him during this time and may decide that a devoted, single-bird home could be the best living situation for him. Either that, or he might like to live in an aviary setting, but that is less common and if he seems okay being caged as long as there are no other birds around to rile up, it would probably be easier to find a home like that for him.

Either way, I'm extremely relieved that things are going this well at all. The one thing I didn't expect was for them to stop contact calling at all when they couldn't see the other, and they stopped in a matter of seconds! Not only that, neither of them seemed afraid or stressed by the separation; in fact, both of them seem to be doing well so far. We will keep updating as time passes.
 

Princessbella

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We have tried playing with toys to show him how. Russet purposefully ignores us and walks/flies away when we do this. He seriously has no interest in anything he's allowed to have.
Can you them put some board such as balsa or another wood on the bottom of the cage for him to chew on? With some bird safe rope? Bailey likes to play with my toys and I have made safe versions of them for him to play with.
 

sunnysmom

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I am glad things are going better! Maybe @Monica has some insight on their behavior?
 

Crazy4parrots

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You sure he is a boy? o_O usually females are the ones that likes doing nest. From my understanding. @Tiel Feathers @sunnysmom
@Aves We sometimes can trick him into playing with a toy by shoving it in front of the baseboard he's trying to chew or the crack he's trying to turn into a nest.
:mad2:
 

sunnysmom

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You sure he is a boy? o_O usually females are the ones that likes doing nest. From my understanding. @Tiel Feathers @sunnysmom
I had asked the same thing before but they said both are boys. It does seem more like female behavior but I have had a male tiel look for a nest place too.
 

Crazy4parrots

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I had asked the same thing before but they said both are boys. It does seem more like female behavior but I have had a male tiel look for a nest place too.
Baby actually looks female as females tend to be gray. Have smaller crest. And the other is Lutino which is a sex linked mutation. I just checked an ID chart of sexing gray tiels and Baby is male yes. But the other being Lutino might very well be Female.
 
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elitys

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Baby actually looks female as females tend to be gray. Have smaller crest. And the other is Lutino which is a sex linked mutation. I just checked an ID chart of sexing gray tiels and Baby is male yes. But the other being Lutino might very well be Female.
Baby (heavy pied, not lutino) has been DNA sexed, male.

Russet (gray) has the fully yellow face that the males do.
 

Crazy4parrots

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Oh sorry I thought Baby was the gray one and Russet was the white/yellow one.
Baby (heavy pied, not lutino) has been DNA sexed, male.

Russet (gray) has the fully yellow face that the males do.
 

elitys

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Also, an update.

I probably spoke too soon and jinxed it... the contact calling has been horrid. They randomly start a 3-5 minute contact calling session from different rooms about 20 times a day. And man, is it loud. I have to take a remote midterm today, so we have to have them together or I won't be able to focus.

I'm really having a hard time handling this. It's stressing me out like crazy and I'm so tired. We aren't sure what to do.

While apart, Baby has been hanging out with Devin and doing regular bird things. When we hang out with Russet alone, he is sweet and normal. But whenever they hear a door open between them (ie, when I go to our bedroom or have to use the bathroom), they will start a contact calling fit. I was in the bathroom with Russet while he was contact calling yesterday because I had to get ready for work and the boy nearly blew out my eardrums. o_O

I left a note for our neighbors yesterday and the ones directly next to us actually said they hadn't heard any birds. I was surprised and relieved to hear that. But still, it is very hard to live in our house right now.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I don't really see any good solutions.

I'll keep updating.

Edit: Also, our roommate works night shifts and I'm very grateful that she is tolerating this at all. She can't sleep for more than an hour or less at a time because of their screaming.
 

Aves

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Also, an update.

I probably spoke too soon and jinxed it... the contact calling has been horrid. They randomly start a 3-5 minute contact calling session from different rooms about 20 times a day. And man, is it loud. I have to take a remote midterm today, so we have to have them together or I won't be able to focus.

I'm really having a hard time handling this. It's stressing me out like crazy and I'm so tired. We aren't sure what to do.

While apart, Baby has been hanging out with Devin and doing regular bird things. When we hang out with Russet alone, he is sweet and normal. But whenever they hear a door open between them (ie, when I go to our bedroom or have to use the bathroom), they will start a contact calling fit. I was in the bathroom with Russet while he was contact calling yesterday because I had to get ready for work and the boy nearly blew out my eardrums. o_O

I left a note for our neighbors yesterday and the ones directly next to us actually said they hadn't heard any birds. I was surprised and relieved to hear that. But still, it is very hard to live in our house right now.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. I don't really see any good solutions.

I'll keep updating.

Edit: Also, our roommate works night shifts and I'm very grateful that she is tolerating this at all. She can't sleep for more than an hour or less at a time because of their screaming.
Wow. That sounds like such a hard situation. I hope it gets better soon.
 

elitys

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Wow. That sounds like such a hard situation. I hope it gets better soon.
Thank you. Me too.

They are in the bathroom together in Russet's cage, and they have been quiet for a little while. I feel like I don't understand them very much. I wish I knew more about how they felt about each other, us, and their environment so I could better meet their needs and address these issues.
 

Monica

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Some foraging ideas....

Get a shallow glass pie dish or similar container. Fill it with cleaned river pebbles. Mix in seeds and pellets into the pebbles. Place on bottom of the cage.

Find some corrugated cardboard. Example like this. Remove one side of the cardboard (the 'paper' only) to reveal the middle section. Fill with dry foods. This can either be placed on the floor of the cage or on the wall (depending on the cardboard - thicker sheets would make great wall foragers!).

You could also get another container and fill it with organic potting soil mix and grow some canary seed, wheat grass, millet, barley, oats, rye, etc. Once the grass is 3-6 inches tall, feed to your birds. May help to have some backups in case they have too much fun 'killing' their plants!

Otherwise, you *COULD* use fake grass.... and use that as a forager... but real grass they can eat and chew on!
 

scrape

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Hey @elitys and @Devin have ya'll reached any changes or conclusions?
 

Devin

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Hey @elitys and @Devin have ya'll reached any changes or conclusions?
We've been trying new things almost every day, but were generally still dealing with the same problems. Everything we change to try to improve their environment or keep them entertained seems to bore them within a day now. Yesterday we set up an entire foraging matt at the bottom of their cage full of seeds and treats put in toys and covered in paper and wood shavings, but they were bored and back to screaming within a few hours, not even having touched most of the seeds. The only time there seemed to be any satisfaction was when I put a large box in the bottom of the cage that they had previously showed interest in nesting in. This made them quite happy and they spent quite a bit of time working on their "nest". However, this made Russet extremely hormonal and aggressive, even towards Baby, and I had to remove it. We know that it is generally advised to discourage nesting behavior in any way possible, but we tried this as an experiment and it seems to be the only thing that can keep them occupied for extended periods. Because we're almost always keeping them caged together we are not dealing with contact calling, but the boredom screaming still is very difficult to keep at bay.

We are generally keeping them in our bathroom, and the smaller room (less visible places they want to go?) combined with the new environment seems to make them slightly more entertained in general. We also still give them several hours out of the cage each day, both to explore the bathroom and fly around the living room.
 
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