Hi, I have a male cockatiel and he is very temperamental. he is love-able one minute wanting all the attention, the next he is attacking us and my partner. We are working with him daily trying to do training, but he is so temperamental. He initially bonded to me, however, he even attacks me at times. Other times he cries if we are not in the same room with him. Im really confused and not sure what to do or how to help this behavior,.
Hi,
This is hormonal behavior and typically doesn’t go on all of the time. But we tend to do things that trigger hormones without meaning to. One problem is that adult cockatiels do not have more than one mate. So as far as pets go, you need to treat the bird as a companion and not as a mate. Common hormonal triggers are petting the bird on the body, cuddling with him, letting him get in boxes or under something. When handing a bird off to someone else, it’s better to set him on a playstand and walk away, and then let your partner pick him up. I can give you a list of things to avoid. I would also recommend that you check out our playlist of hormone webinars. We are actually having two webinars on hormones next month. We do one every March because this is when most parrots start their hormonal behavior.
He can get hormonal when we start having longer daylight, warmer weather, abundant food, and a quiet, private environment. Your goal is to reverse these conditions.
Limit his light to 8-10 hours by covering the cage early each evening
Do not give him anything to use as a nest – no bird huts or tents, no box, bowl, etc. If he decides to sit in a food bowl, remove it and replace with smaller cups.
Do not give him anything to shred such as paper or cardboard.
Rearrange the toys in the cage frequently.
Move the cage to a different place in the room. Move the cage about once a week, or whenever he shows signs of nesting – settling on the cage floor for example, or aggression.
If you feed a lot of fresh foods, stop offering any for a couple of weeks, and then only offer them in small amounts about 2 or 3 times a week. You can resume normal feeding later when the birds aren’t being hormonal.
When he is let out of the cage, do not let him get in any dark cozy places and don’t give him free roam.
When you handle him, limit any petting to only his head and neck – do not pet him on the body. Only a bonded mate is allowed to groom the body. We can’t be a mate, so touching the body is off limits.
Here is the playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmhX6UrcJC1lN1FogOGJea0CXd_6IISqg
Here is where you can register for the free webinar next month. If you can’t view live, it will be on YouTube afterwards: https://lafeber.com/pet-birds/avian-vet-insider-pet-bird-hormones-top-10/
Thank you for Asking Lafeber,
Brenda
