Ask Lafeber

How will moving houses regularly affect my bird?

I have just brought a 10-12 week old cockatiel and am just wondering how to approach the entire thing, he was hand reered but is not super comfortable with human interaction, Im guessing it’s just because he has just moved to a new place and is uncomfortable, another complexity is that I alternate between two houses every week, and I want to bring him along and have a strong connection with the bird, but could moving scare him and lose me lot of effort I had put in towards taming him.
Should I start moving him strait away, wait, or don’t do it at all, but if I don’t do it all, will I not have a good relationship with him only seeing him one week every fortnight?

Hi,

It sounds like the bird might have been hand raised but wasn’t socialized. However, it should still be tame, so it may be that the bird is older than what you were told or it wasn’t hand raised. You need to form a bond and gain his trust. Moving between houses is usually not a problem once they learn the routine. However, since y’all are not bonded yet and everything is new, he may be stressed to begin with. Typically you want a bird to have plenty of time to settle into a new home. You do have a challenging situation because you will lose ground if you go two weeks without working with him, but the stress of moving back and forth may also make taming him harder. I’ll give you the links to our behavior and taming pages to help you understand him and know the best way to work with him.

Pet Bird and Parrot Behavior

Teaching Your Bird

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda