My cockatiel bird used to come to my hand in initial days i used to feed it with my hand but then i got bit busy and started to feed it with syringe which it didn’t like then i will keep the food in the cage it will it by itself now if i try to take him to the hand he won’t come. Now he is scared of me and often try to fly away. He is 2 months old. It has been 1 month since i got him.
Hi,
It sounds like he doesn’t trust you for some reason. Did you ever try to force him to eat with the syringe? Did you make him eat on his own too early? At 8 weeks, a lot of cockatiels still want to be hand fed once or twice a day. You need to work to regain his trust. Talk to him a lot and never try to grab him. Cockatiels are prey animals, so when you grab at a bird it feels like a predator is trying to grab them. It would be good to have an expert trim his wings. If he can fly away from you, then he will be harder to work with. A lot of chicks get a bit wild when they first start to fly. I’ll give you the links to our taming and behavior pages to help you.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
