Ask Lafeber

Gloomy and sleepy Cockatiel

My cockatiel is 14 years old. Became very friendly recently when we started petting her and letting her come out of cage. Four weeks ago we noticed when we petted her she makes cooing sounds and enjoys the petting at the same time lifts her tail as if she is being stimulated. Then all of a sudden her behaviour changed : sleeps and sits in a same place and not eating anything. We took her to the vet and they gave some medication and antibiotics. They noticed redness in her throat and tongue also. And also gave some medications for her digestive systems. Any way we noticed she laid a single egg after many years. After couple of days she became normal playful and loving .
We started petting her and she is doing the same thing again. She is sitting in her cage and not eating anything. We also noticed she was cooing and making noise as if being stimulated. Is it the same pattern. ? Should we just wait for her to lay eggs ? We do not want to take her to the vet/hospital again.
Please advice

Hi Johnson,

The problem is if you wait and it turns out she is still sick, you could lose her. Did the Vet run any tests? Is this an Avian Vet? Usually a bird will need to go back for a re-check after being on medication. It could be the wrong medicine for her infection. Sometimes a medicine makes them feel better, but if you stop using it too soon or if the prescribed time wasn’t long enough, the bird will become sick again. So this could be what is going on. She is also too old to be laying eggs. She is at a higher risk of becoming egg bound. And there is also the possibility of her having an un-laid egg in the wrong place.

The petting is definitely stimulating her so you need to stop when she starts acting stimulated. You also need to limit any petting to her head and neck. When you pet her on the body, this is a hormone trigger because only her mate would be allowed to groom her on the body. We recently presented two webinars on hormonal behavior so I would highly recommend that you watch them to learn what her triggers are and what you can do to reduce or stop this behavior.

Webinar: “Spring Is In the Air: How To Deal With Your Pet Bird’s Hormonal Behavior!”

Webinar: “Pet Birds & Hormonal Behavior: Part 2!”

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda