Help! Angry young male cockatiel

Bostjan_

New member
May 4, 2014
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0
Hello,

we have had a female cockatiel for 7,5 years now and in that time, my girlfriend has been her absolute favourite person. She always calls her, sometimes even screams, and when it is time for her to lay eggs, she is obsessed with her even more. We suspect that my girlfriend is her "male".

However, 3 months ago we have bought a younger male cockatiel for company and mating who is now 7 months old and he has been fairly quiet for the first two months. He and the older female never really had any confrontations other than her hissing and mostly moving away from him to the opposite side of the cage. We figured this is because she needs time to except the new member. Despite these (to us) normal happenings, the last month or so, the male has apperently hit puberty since he is costantly angry. These signs of this are:
- low crest
- beak banging
- all sorts of sound repertoar
- screaming
- hissing
- opening his beak as if he will bite
- spreading his wings etc.

These signs occur often and sometimes even when we are not in the room, but mostly when we are and when that happens, he oftentimes looks at us while doing these things. He is also very nervous is she goes to the other room and incredibly loud when that happens.

We have tried to hand tame him by using the clicker and the stick method which gradually worked well for the first two months, but now he does not seem to be interested in that and gets easily distracted and angry.

We have a feeling that is because he is frustrated over the fact that the female doesn't show him any affection or reaction for that matter and that she basically percieves my girlfriend as her "male".

What do you think is the reason for this? What do you think we could do? Could is stop over time and if so, when? Could the fact that the female is too old for him and too my girlfriend that she will never except him as her lifetime partner and therefor he will continue to stay frustrated ...?

Please help, we are desperate and don't want to give him away but will have to do so if this doesn't change. The fact that we live in a flat and he is so loud, disturbs our neighbours as well ...

Thank you for your answer!

Boštjan
 

MonicaMc

Well-known member
Sep 12, 2012
7,960
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Parrots
Mitred Conure - Charlie 1994;
Cockatiel - Casey 2001;
Wild Caught ARN - Sylphie 2013
Generally speaking, birds don't care about ages! Young and old birds will mate with no qualms!

Although if a bird is "too young", there may be issues!



Unfortunately with a hen like yours, she may never bond with a male cockatiel and mate with him. Casey, my first tiel, is 13 years old this month and has used perches and dishes to masturbate on. The only time I had a male tiel interested in her (because he had just lost his own mate and was lonely), she would be masturbating and he would saunter on over, strutting his stuff and sounding SO lovely! Casey would then in turn stop what she was doing and either walk or fly off!

Casey has never shown any interest in a male cockatiel what-so-ever! She has laid eggs, but she never got the "411" on incubation and sitting on eggs anyway, so easily gets distracted and doesn't sit on eggs if she ever does lay any. The only thing she does understand is that the eggs are supposed to be in a dark area and 'together' - plus they are supposed to somehow fit underneath her! Keyword, somehow! LOL




Cockatiels shouldn't be bred under 18 months old anyway, so he's a bit young. Not to say that he can't, but he's just a little boy who's maturing! It might help to increase how much sleep he gets but other than encouraging him to forage, training, exercising and bathing, there might not be much you can do... so those are some things you could try.
 

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