Meet Lucy, my little Starshine.

[Lullx]

Lucy is my little starshine. She actually turns 1 in two weeks!

I got her as a baby from my cousin, who is a small-time breeder of tiels. She is my first bigger-than-budgie bird. When she was just one month old, I brought my first conure Genevieve home, so Lucy has grown up with other parrots. She even sleeps in the same cage as my two conures. They all get along amazingly!

She's always had her flight feathers and she's a very strong flyer.

The only thing she loves more than flying around the apartment is snuggling with me.

And using me as a perch.

Sharing food with her sister Genevieve.

And taking showers with her conure siblings!

And of course, helping my anxiety and self-confidence.

I love this little chicken so much, and I hope you do too

 

[JerseyWendy]

Oh my gosh, how super precious!!!! Thank you for sharing gorgeous Lucy with us. What a sweetheart!! :smile015:

 

[Allee]

Lucy looks like such a sweetheart, and so cuddly! You're flock is adorable! Thanks for sharing!

 

[thekarens]

What a sweet heart!

 

[Lullx]

Thank you all so much!
I think she knows how adorable she is. I didn't want to flood this post with too many pictures of her, but I take so many of her. She's always doing something to make me laugh or smile.

Hopefully my post helps someone see that tiels can be great, hands-on companions like other parrots. I know there's a misconception that cockatiels aren't very cuddly or personable, or that they're just meant to be kept in a cage and look cute. My Lucy's personality is just as big as that of my conures!

 

[RavensGryf]

Thank you for sharing Lucy with us! She is a doll, and shows just how cuddly tiels can be!

 

[kalypso123]

I agree with you tiels are misunderstood. Mine has bunches of personality. My great Grannys old tiel Pete was a handful. He was free flighted in the house so when she had company over she would put him in his room somehow he would find his way out and stroll into the living room and talk to everyone and just walk back to his room. He also scared the heck out of my mom. She was using the restroom and Pete stuc his head up under the door, as it was about three inches off the ground, and he said Whacha doin. He always had everyone in stiches sometimes litteraly as he only wanted Great Granny to touch him, but as she was in her early 80's while she had Pete, she always tried to get us to hold him but that wasnt going to happen. I love tiels. Yours is so pretty I love the lutino mutation.

 

[Lullx]

I'll be honest and say that I was in the camp of not liking tiels before I got Lucy. I kind of got pushed into taking her by my well-meaning mom (I had wanted a different species but was having trouble finding a breeder). But as the time for me to take her home grew closer, I really warmed up to the idea.
I think the issue was that most people I knew with tiels didn't really train them or spend much out-of-cage time with them. So now I work to advocate for tiels, to show how amazing they really are as pets.

Lutino is one of my favorite mutations, bias aside haha
I also really like whiteface and cinnamon pearl. I have a friend on Instagram who has those two mutations. They're such gorgeous birds.

 

[JerseyWendy]

Did I hear you mention you had a boatload of photos of Lucy? :54: By all means....share away, pretty please!

 

[Lullx]

Until very recently, I've only been using my smartphone for Internet usage and whatnot, so I have a ton of pictures an short videos of all of my birds on it as well as my Instagram.
What are the guidelines on posting videos? Is it okay to post links to my Instagram videos? Is there some sort of form to upload videos on-site here?

 

[JerseyWendy]

I don't know anything about linking to Instagram - sorry about that. What I (and many of us) do is upload to YouTube, and then post the link to that. It works great, it even embeds the video.

 

[Lullx]

Hmm. Since I'm using my laptop more, maybe I'll start uploading to Youtube then.

I do have a short little looping video of me petting Lucy. It's on Instagram, but viewable on computers!
Here it is!

I'll start taking longer ones for Youtube, but until then, I hope this is okay

 

[JerseyWendy]

NNNNNAAAWWW - I'm melting here, Britt! :smile015: Love how Lucy pushes her sweet little face into your hand for more lovin'!!! :smile015:

 

[Lullx]

When I first got her, I had no idea that tiels were so snuggly. After a few days of being home with me, she started headbutting me, and I was a bit startled and didn't know what she was trying to do. Turns out it was her way of asking for head pets!

Now she'll waddle up to me and slowly headbutt my hand until I pet her.