Ask Lafeber

My baby cockatiel

Please help me, my cockatiel (hand raised) was bought 2 weeks ago. But she wont stop screatching. It sound like whrn a baby cockatiel is hungry. But she eats and her buckets are full. She only eats the wheat grain. Is there perhaps something wrong with her? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdVP4KGlxaQ
She sound exactly like this link. She also bites at everything, not our fingers luckily, but the table and books and even my keyboard. I can send you an email with a photo of her as well to see how big she is if you want?

Hi Brenda,

It may be that she was force weaned before she was ready. Cockatiels will revert a little bit during the weaning process and she may not have been given the time she needed to wean. If you have ever hand fed before, sometimes my advice is to offer her some formula and start the weaning process again. If she is on seed and is only eating one type out of the mix, she is not getting the nutrition she needs. She needs to be offered a lot of different foods and learn to eat something more nutritious than a loose seed mix. She should be on a nutritionally balanced diet like pellets or our foraging diets. I will provide you with a link on nutrition to help you know what to feed her. In short, she should have her daily nutritionally balanced diet – not loose seed – mixed or chopped veggies with cooked brown rice, cooked eggs and other healthy table foods. She is making that sound because she is hungry because she is not eating enough or getting enough nutrition. Also, be sure to google the term “abundance weaning parrots” to learn more about how to properly wean a bird.

Bird Food Guide

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda