Ask Lafeber

Baby Cockatiel taming

Hello my pair of cockatiel had just have babies. If I want them to be tamed How old should they be, so I should start hand feeding them and how should I tame them?

Hi,

If you hand feed them, they will be tame from all of the handling. But you would need someone to teach you how to hand feed. It isn’t as easy as you might think, and they can easily die if you do anything wrong. Some issues can be the wrong temperature in their environment, formula too hot or cold, formula too thick or thin and bacterial infections are very common.

A better method is called co-parenting. When their eyes start to open, you can remove one chicks from the nest at a time, and handle it for a few minutes, a few times a day. Only handle them when their crop is not completely full. And if the parents get too upset or aggressive, you can’t do this. But usually if you only remove one at a time, the parents will let you. This is something you start around 3 weeks. Continue this until they leave the nest box. Then once they leave the box, you can handle them more often until they are weaned. Once weaned, separate them from the parents and handle them regularly.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda