Ask Lafeber

My cockatiel doesn’t want to be tamem

I’ve had this pair of 7 month old cockatiel for 3 months, one of them was tamed pretty easily after a month or so from getting them, and now we have a some what strong bond but the other one (the male bird) is not willing to! I tried everything, what worked for the female bird and other techniques as well but nothing has worked. he takes food directly from my hand, he sings with me and he gets pretty excited when he sees me but he doesn’t want to step on my hand. all of this is a problem because I take my tamed bird out of the cage and spend time with her and I feel like he’s being left out and that he’s pretty lonely. and sometimes I’ll let him get outside just to flap his wings a little bit but then I can’t get him inside unless I grab him and he gets pretty scared and screams and after that I feel really bad, his eyes just seem so sad and it seems like he feels he got betrayed. what should I do? I don’t want to leave him out and I also don’t want to grab him like this. I love him so much but I’m starting to get hopeless and I’m considering selling him.

Hi,

If you want both birds to be tame, you need to have each bird in its own cage. These birds are young and that is why you have tamed one of them. But any day now, hormones will set in, the two birds will bond, and you will have no hope to tame either bird. When 2 birds share a cage, they will almost always bond and no longer want to be a pet.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda