Cockatiel Diary - March 24

Cricket’s doing great. This week he got up on my finger with no complaint, although this was outside his cage and away from his cage. He will absolutely NOT step up if he’s inside or on top of his cage. I have to wait for him to fly down to the floor in order to get him to step up. Or “force” him onto a perch from the top of his cage. He’ll have none of me trying to encourage him onto a perch or onto my finger from inside his cage. I’m not sure how to move to the next step with regard to this.

The other frustration is that his cage door opens up instead of swinging out, so he’s not able to voluntarily climb up the open door to his cage top, and this frustrates him to no end. He wants out SO BAD and he lets me know this very loudly but he just won’t let me help him, so he stresses out until he decides to fly down, which only occasionally happens.

So that’s where we are with that.

Things I observe:

He’s been really beak banging a lot (don’t know if this has to do with his exit frustration)

He has an occasional GIANT poop. Color looks OK, maybe lighter green slightly. Is this normal?

It seems like every 2 weeks or so he gets this flake of skin-looking thing that’s on the same eyelid and kind of protrudes into his eye a bit making it slightly difficult to close. Don’t know if it’s just a coincidence or a possible problem.

I think he might be starting to eat crushed up pellets (I roll them w/ a rolling pin 'til they’re seed-sized) along with the seed I feed him. I’m making it more difficult for him to find seed in with his crushed pellets.

He seems only mildly into lettuces and broccoli and peas and bits of egg and bread I keep in a separate snack dish.

He seems totally oblivious to the bathing concept. I even put down a shallow plate of water which he showed zero interest in checking out. He just drinks out of his birdie bathtub in the cage. He seems annoyed by spritzing.

That’s all I can think of now. He’s been a little more screechy lately. I’m wondering if puberty is near…

: )

Any large pet store will have a cage platform that just hooks on to the front for him to step out onto and land on.

Very normal for a female that’s getting ready to lay.

Will look into this immediately.

rut row…:eek:

Yeah “egg poops” is what we call them. And they’re much nastier than regular poopies.

Current thinking is that they should get a mix of seeds and pellets (not one or the other entirely) so don’t convert him (her? heh) completely from seeds. Supplement with the soft and fresh foods like you are doing.

Eating the stuff yourself (or faking it) may get the bird interested in joining in.

edit: beak banging is a normal male behavior. It’s used both to show off one’s manliness to the admiring hens and also, in my experience, sometimes seems to occur when frustrated.

I did some reading up on egg-laying behavior, and the egg-poops are supposed to be smelly- so far I haven’t noticed any smell. How often do these “egg poops” usually happen before an egg is laid? I saw another one in there this morning. I think this makes 3 big poops since I got him, two within the last 4 days.

It varies; sometimes they happen without ever being followed by an egg.