Taming help?

I've had my cockatiel for about a week and a half now. He eats out of my palm & through the bars and such when i offer him millet. But as of now he won't let me touch him at all, and I'm wondering what I should do. Do I just keep letting him eat out of my hand and wait for him to get accustomed? I understand I should be patient, im just wondering if I'm doing the right thing! Lol

Another question for later is what should I do when he's ready to come out of the cage. Since he's not clipped, i'm worried he'll fly around everywhere and i wont be able to get him back in the cage. Should i get him clipped?

Yep, patience is the key.....some birds will learn to step up in a couple of weeks, while others may take longer.....I once had 4 sun conures that had never been handled and were not tame...it took up to and over a year to get all four hand tamed.....

If you are leaving his door open so that he'll come out when he's ready, you would be wise to do this in a bedroom or other room that you can close the door to, to restrict his movement around the house.....rather than chasing him around, you might want to let him out after dark, until he becomes hand familiar & let's you pick him up.....catching/picking up a bird in a dark room is very easy, just don't scare him, when you turn the lights out, keep talking to him & just pick him up.....

Good luck.....

Oddly enough, I could teach you how to train a macaw not to bite, but I've got zero experience with tiels...

Generally speaking, try getting two popsicle sticks, and use those until he accepts you touching him with them. Then work on touching him all over, particularly the tail area. (Untamed birds tend to get defensive and bitey when their tails are touched. They have to learn to get over it!)

Then when he accepts being touched, slowly work your fingers down the popsicle sticks until you don't need them anymore.

We did this with two perches for the aggressive macaws down at the rescue, and it worked really well... I imagine a popsicle stick or a wooden BBQ skewer would work for a tiel...

It took about 3 months before I could get my new red throated conure to step up from her cage using my hands/arms, and she's still getting used to it! But she's comfortable enough with both now that she will step up from her cage or any place she is set down at. The same behavior when I first got her? She'd bite the snot out of me or hide!!!!

What she hasn't learned yet is how to step up from my shoulder, but that's ok! All in due time! I can still get her off me by leaning towards her cage (if she wants to get off me that is... lol) or to the back of a chair. Once she is 100% comfortable with hands and arms, then we'll work on step up from the shoulder!



I would say that once your cockatiel is comfortable with being on your hand and eating then you can attempt out of cage time as Weco said. The more comfortable your cockatiel is with you and his environment, the less likely he is to freak out once out of the cage. The worst thing to do with a frightened bird is to chase after it! This kind of instills the fear that you are a predator and should be avoided... so it's usually best to give them a bit of time to calm down before slowly going over to them and asking them to step up.