Non stop contact calling

[Hollytuff]

Hello - I recently posted about my inherited cockatiel, Tuffy. I was worried as he was particularly quiet. Well, he’s perked up which is wonderful, but he does what I think is a contact call, every few seconds from the moment he wakes up until I put him away for the night.

Has anyone experienced this?

He has lots of human interaction, plenty of out of cage time (he even does it out of the cage), and a cockatiel friend for company. He also has lots of toys, and we haven’t changed his routine or food or anything.

We have no idea whether he’s content or distressed! All other behaviour is normal. I’ll just add that I know tiels are noisy and love the sounds they make - this just seems unusual.

 

[sunnysmom]

How long have you had him? I wonder if he's calling for his prior owner.

 

[Hollytuff]

I did wonder this, but we’ve had him a few months now and it’s a new behaviour.

 

[sunnysmom]

Could be a number of things. Some birds have a longer "honeymoon" period than others and maybe it's just sinking in? Perhaps he's hormonal? You could try increasing his hours of sleep/darkness by 2 hours for 2 weeks to see if it makes a difference. My sweet tiel Scooter was a terror for a few weeks recently I think because of hormones. Another thought- are there any mirrors around or something he could be seeing his reflection in?

 

[Hollytuff]

There’s no mirrors and nothing reflective. I’ll try giving him a couple of hours sleep per night and see if that helps, thank you. It’s very sad if he is calling out for his previous owner, as she sadly died back in June. Poor little darling.

 

[Hollytuff]

A couple of hours extra*

 

[Carina.317]

Hey it's been a while; did the extra hours of sleep help? Has the behavior changed?