Hey everyone! Today I'd like to introduce you to my first ever cockatiel Teddie! I got him on the 21st July and he's been settling in pretty well, especially this last week! 
I got him from a local pet shop where he was in a cage by himself, and the first time I saw him I just fell in love with him. I had looked into adopting a cockatiel first but thankfully for the local birds, there were none that needed rehoming! I then looked for a local breeder but there weren't any, and as I live on a small island, to get a cockatiel from a breeder would involve me getting one from overseas which the pet shops do anyway. Thankfully where I live the pet shops do take very good care of the animals (we have no major chains, so they are all family run which is nice!) so I felt safe in getting him from there.
The first week or two he was pretty fiesty, he would hiss a lot if I went too close to his cage but I expected that. Since then he's warmed to me quite a bit, but the last week we've really bonded! He comes to sit by the front of the cage to see me, and he responds pretty well to his name and my voice in general. He chirps an awful lot but he sounds so beautiful I don't really mind it! We live in the countryside so every morning the birds outside start chirping and he seems to have picked up their calls too. The other day I swear he sounded just like a crow, it was kind of scary how accurate a call it was.
We started clicker training this week, and he's doing really well! He can "bip" the target stick (I tried "target" first but I think maybe it was too close to "Teddie" for him to grasp?) and he can step up too! Some days he'll jump on my finger and then straight back onto his perch, but other times he'll just sit there until my arm goes dead and I tell him to get off for a second.
He also likes to try and sneak around my hand when he's meant to be bipping the target stick to score himself some extra millet... it's really adorable but if I gave him treats every time he was then he'd be pretty tubby by now. 
Yesterday he had his first break out! I admit I panicked a little, but really, a month and a day isn't that bad for a first break out, right? I remembered reading a post here somewhere about birds' weird love of curtain poles and figured it was just a joke or exaggeration, but nope...
Today I did some more training with him and decided to try feeding him out of my hand, and it worked! For the first time! He's eaten millet before with no problems, but he's never done it when I use seed. He stayed there for about 5 minutes stuffing his little face, it was adorable.
Then, just before I put this post together, I decided to have another go at getting him to trust my finger. He doesn't mind stepping up or eating food from my hand (as you can see) but he's still unsure of it on it's own, especially near his face. However, I've been trying to clicker train him to not be scared and it worked! I don't have a picture but he let me give him head scritches for the first time! When he realised that head scritches are actually pretty nice, he rested his head into my hand and let me scratch his head for him, and even his neck and tummy a little as well and was proper loving it. It was so adorable, I had a little cry whilst I pet him too.
I've been having a real tough time lately, but ever since I got Teddie it's just given me a reason to try and push past everything and carry on, focusing on giving him the best care and attention I can. So thank you AA for providing such great information for first time bird keepers, thanks to you I've been able to bond with this little fella and he's made me so happy already in such a short space of time.
I got him from a local pet shop where he was in a cage by himself, and the first time I saw him I just fell in love with him. I had looked into adopting a cockatiel first but thankfully for the local birds, there were none that needed rehoming! I then looked for a local breeder but there weren't any, and as I live on a small island, to get a cockatiel from a breeder would involve me getting one from overseas which the pet shops do anyway. Thankfully where I live the pet shops do take very good care of the animals (we have no major chains, so they are all family run which is nice!) so I felt safe in getting him from there.
The first week or two he was pretty fiesty, he would hiss a lot if I went too close to his cage but I expected that. Since then he's warmed to me quite a bit, but the last week we've really bonded! He comes to sit by the front of the cage to see me, and he responds pretty well to his name and my voice in general. He chirps an awful lot but he sounds so beautiful I don't really mind it! We live in the countryside so every morning the birds outside start chirping and he seems to have picked up their calls too. The other day I swear he sounded just like a crow, it was kind of scary how accurate a call it was.
We started clicker training this week, and he's doing really well! He can "bip" the target stick (I tried "target" first but I think maybe it was too close to "Teddie" for him to grasp?) and he can step up too! Some days he'll jump on my finger and then straight back onto his perch, but other times he'll just sit there until my arm goes dead and I tell him to get off for a second.
He also likes to try and sneak around my hand when he's meant to be bipping the target stick to score himself some extra millet... it's really adorable but if I gave him treats every time he was then he'd be pretty tubby by now.
Yesterday he had his first break out! I admit I panicked a little, but really, a month and a day isn't that bad for a first break out, right? I remembered reading a post here somewhere about birds' weird love of curtain poles and figured it was just a joke or exaggeration, but nope...
Today I did some more training with him and decided to try feeding him out of my hand, and it worked! For the first time! He's eaten millet before with no problems, but he's never done it when I use seed. He stayed there for about 5 minutes stuffing his little face, it was adorable.
Then, just before I put this post together, I decided to have another go at getting him to trust my finger. He doesn't mind stepping up or eating food from my hand (as you can see) but he's still unsure of it on it's own, especially near his face. However, I've been trying to clicker train him to not be scared and it worked! I don't have a picture but he let me give him head scritches for the first time! When he realised that head scritches are actually pretty nice, he rested his head into my hand and let me scratch his head for him, and even his neck and tummy a little as well and was proper loving it. It was so adorable, I had a little cry whilst I pet him too.
I've been having a real tough time lately, but ever since I got Teddie it's just given me a reason to try and push past everything and carry on, focusing on giving him the best care and attention I can. So thank you AA for providing such great information for first time bird keepers, thanks to you I've been able to bond with this little fella and he's made me so happy already in such a short space of time.
I liked your post also...your excitement shows. 
