[Debbied1026]

hi, my name is Debbie, im 45 years young and a wife, mom and grandma. im also a new owner to 2 cockatiels, they seem to get along with everyone but me lol, when i get close to the cage they act like they want to bite me. even tried before when i was cleaning there cage out. i think they can sense that im scared of them. i think what scares me the most is that my husband did get bit and it brought blood when we first got them, and i dont want to go thru any pain. i will take his word for it that it hurt lol
i want more then anything to be able to reach in there and let one of them or both at a later time to step out onto my waiting finger but i dont know how to approach my fear.
I go to the cage and talk to them all the time, i have even downloaded some cockatiel sounds on my computer so they can hear them and maybe mimic them later on.
I went and bought all kinds of toys for there cage and found out thru the web that they eat other foods then just seeds so they get bread,dried cereal, fruits and veggies daily. i did a search on what they like to drink not as a replacement for water but as (snack sort of) mine like milk.
I think im doing everything right but im not sure, if any of you have any suggestions please send them to me.
I also have 3 inside dogs. 1 is a black brindle pit/lab mix named Hoss, the next one is a white german shepard mix named Sissy and last but not least is Ginger she is a brownish/reddish german shepard mix.
Im sorry for the long introduction but thats just me i was blessed by the man upstairs with a gift of gab lol
Im off to read some more threads here, check out my profile there is a link to my myspace.com page.
Thanks for reading.. Debbie

 

[Laura]

Hi Debbie welcome to the forum congrats on your new additions to the family what mutations are they? male/female? how old are they? your not the only one with the gift of gab....lol I have to tell you when I first got my Georgie for the first few days I was scared of her...lol I would let her out of the cage and she would fly on my head and seeing as I didn't want poop in my hair I would put my finger up for her to step on it and she would hiss at my finger and try and bite it and of course I would move my hand away big mistake...lol I would go and get a perch and get her to step up on that because I was afraid of getting bite, but after a few days I realized I wasn't helping myself any by my fears so I took the plunge and surprisingly she started stepping up once she realized that my finger was not going away she did try and bite me a few times but it was more of a bluff bite it didn't hurt I call it the warning bite and she will stll occasionally do it if I try to make her do something she doesn't want but she knows that I am not going away...lol
Hopefully you will be able to work through your fear it sounds like your doing all the right things and you have done your homework, be careful with giving the milk, birds do not have the enzyme lactase which is neccesary to digest milk products it can cause digestive problems for them.

 

[Bea]

Welcome to the forums!! I think we had another member who was afraid of being bitten too, you might find some helpful topics in Cockatiel Talk.

As to the milk i would avoid it all together. A better "treat" type drink would be fresh fruit juice, but only a little bit. The best drink for them is definitely water.

 

[Debbied1026]

Re: Hello from Indianapolis,Indiana

Hi Debbie welcome to the forum congrats on your new additions to the family what mutations are they? male/female? how old are they? your not the only one with the gift of gab....lol I have to tell you when I first got my Georgie for the first few days I was scared of her...lol I would let her out of the cage and she would fly on my head and seeing as I didn't want poop in my hair I would put my finger up for her to step on it and she would hiss at my finger and try and bite it and of course I would move my hand away big mistake...lol I would go and get a perch and get her to step up on that because I was afraid of getting bite, but after a few days I realized I wasn't helping myself any by my fears so I took the plunge and surprisingly she started stepping up once she realized that my finger was not going away she did try and bite me a few times but it was more of a bluff bite it didn't hurt I call it the warning bite and she will stll occasionally do it if I try to make her do something she doesn't want but she knows that I am not going away...lol
Hopefully you will be able to work through your fear it sounds like your doing all the right things and you have done your homework, be careful with giving the milk, birds do not have the enzyme lactase which is neccesary to digest milk products it can cause digestive problems for them.

to answer your questions, I asked for a boy and girl was told by my sister in law that raises them that gave me this pair for free!! that i had one of each, i cant tell them apart, one website mentioned something about 1 sexes face area is duller then the other. so they are both called pretty birds to me and until i figured out who is who they arent named yet lol, there ages are about 3 mths old. they arent related my sil raises these types of birds and these 2 came from 2 seperate cages. the milk i dont give them all the time, maybe a little one day and none the next. as far as water they get fresh water daily and they have a little thingy hanging from there cage that holds the water and on the way other end there is a section in it that holds there food, i feed them Hartz wholesome select cockatiel diet. when there sitting on there little tree limb inside i have put my finger up there hoping they will step out onto it, but sometimes they actually try to bite me. other times they are running each other off that limb to get away. they arent abused here and as far as i know they werent abused at my sil's so i dont know what there thinking. my daughter-in-law told me that putting those hanging mirrors in the cages would make them mean is that true? maybe i need to get rid of the 2 mirrors that are in there. and they fight with each other, one of them even trys to bite the others foot.
reply back and let me know where to go from here.

 

[Laura]

Its all a personal choice on using mirrors there are some people on here that do use them and have no problems I choice not to use them sometimes with mirrors it can cause problems because they think its another bird in the reflection of the mirror some birds get very possessive of there reflection and it can cause aggression more so in males if I was you I would take them out till you have a better relationship with the tiels and then maybe reintroudce the mirrors once you have that established
what colours are your tiels? that will give us a better idea what mutations they are
Here is a link to a site that answers some questions on biting, taming and mirrors you might get some good ideas on here that will help you.
http://www.cockatielcottage.net/questions3.html

 

[Debbied1026]

Re: Hello from Indianapolis,Indiana

Its all a personal choice on using mirrors there are some people on here that do use them and have no problems I choice not to use them sometimes with mirrors it can cause problems because they think its another bird in the reflection of the mirror some birds get very possessive of there reflection and it can cause aggression more so in males if I was you I would take them out till you have a better relationship with the tiels and then maybe reintroudce the mirrors once you have that established
what colours are your tiels? that will give us a better idea what mutations they are
Here is a link to a site that answers some questions on biting, taming and mirrors you might get some good ideas on here that will help you.
http://www.cockatielcottage.net/questions3.html

ok i went and found a pic online of another cockatiel. the picture below resembles both of mine ALOT!! i wish i had a camera but i dont.
They are happy little campers today playing in my media player right now is 2 very loud but happy tiels. whistling and carrying there own little tune.
My 2 are happily chirping every now and then and also playing with their toys and checking everything out .. i had 1 more question before the moderator moves this post to another area and i probably wont be able to find it among all those other threads lol.. can these birds eat live worms?

 

[Laura]

live worms .....hehe I am not sure about that never heard of anyone giving live worms if your tiels look like the picture then they would both be normal grey's and that picuture is of a male they get the yellow head where as the females will retain more of a grey with some yellow, feel free to post any questions you have in the other cockatiel sections on the board

I would post the live worm question in the food and nutrition forum, you will probably get some answers on it .

 

[atvchick95]

Don't I know you from somewhere?? LOL - Glad you joined us here on Cockatiels, You'll get tons of helpful advice from here, I know I have

 

[Aly]

Welcome. I'm sure you'll find all the help you need here. Biting is something that can be corrected so no worries. I posted the answer to your worm question the in the other thread since this one is introductions.