Ask Lafeber

How to pet stubborn baby cockatiel

Hi there! Hope you are doing good
I have hand fed and raised 8 cockatiel chicks each with their own personalities and feeding methods (spoon/syringe alternating) thing is whenever I have gotten cockatiel chicks they just never get used to being pet
..the only one that got used to being pet was the cockatiel I bonded with at the start of my hobby…I got him when he was 2 weeks old and hand reared him til 6 months after which it died of pneumonia…. Now I have 4 cockatiel chicks so the total number of chicks I have hand fed is 12! But whenever they see me they just beg for food and don’t stay silent at all even with a full crop….I want to know at what age will they want to get.scritches or get pet? And at what age should I free fly train Them/ step up train?….I’m not doing anything to the chicks other than feeding them right now and don’t really play with them because it’s winter and they might get sick….one of them is 6 days old the other is 10 days old the other one is 13 days old and the oldest is 18 days old

Hi,

At this age all they do is eat and sleep. You can handle them more once the eyes ae open, but only fora few minutes before feeding them. They won’t have a lot of interest in being handled until they are close to weaning. I would recommend that you read our pages on behavior and training so you can better understand how to work with them.

Teaching Your Bird

Pet Bird and Parrot Behavior

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda