Ask Lafeber

Cockatiel

Hello.. I bought a pair of cocktails before a week. They are 2-2.5 months old.. they can eat seeds and can drink water by themselves only. My question is, whenever i am trying them to get out of their cage they will come and sit on my finger but not longer time. They jump and sit at another place. Then they are not coming with me. What should i do? One of them is always scared from me. Basically i wanted to play with them and they are flying away or taking their steps back when i am trying to go with them. What should i do?

Hi Dave,

It sounds like these birds were hand fed since they are at least sitting on your finger inside of the cage. However, when you let birds share a cage, they will tend to bond with each other and not be very interested in human contact. I would recommend getting a second cage and keeping each bird in their own cage. You will make much better progress with each bird by working with each one separately. You need to build trust with them before you do too much with them. You have only had them for a week, so they may need a bit more time to get used to you. I’ll give you the link to our taming & training information, bird behavior info as well as a webinar we hosted last week on building a relationship with your bird. I think all of this will help you have a better understanding of how to tame and train your new birds.

Teaching Your Bird

Pet Bird and Parrot Behavior

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda