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 Post subject: Re: New Here!
PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 12:22 pm 
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tielfan wrote:
Cockatiels do NOT like sneezes lol. My birds have heard me do it a million times and it still sets them off. If I'm able to tell them that something is about to happen they don't freak out, but due to the nature of sneezes I'm frequently unable to talk when one is coming on.

Repeated accidents can damage the feather follicle to the point that feathers can no longer grow, and it sounds like Zappy may have had enough damage for them to not stay in as well as they should. There could be other issues though. The flight feathers support each other in a wing that's properly feathered, but there's not enough support in situations where there's basically one long feather and everything else is either missing or clipped very short. So that isolated long feather is likely to get knocked out under conditions that wouldn't cause problems if the other feathers were there. If you can prevent him from having further accidents it's possible that the follicles might heal over time and do a better job of retaining the feathers.

The singing and heart-winging to the aquarium sounds like he's making friends with his reflection. That might be one reason he's calmer there. A bird that's alone is at higher risk from predators than a bird that's in a flock. He's got a flockmate in the aquarium to help keep watch and spread the risk around, and the flockmate never freaks out over anything at night. You might even consider giving him a mirror. A lot of people will say to never give a mirror to a bird because it can cause problems, but they do have their uses. IMO the decision should depend on whether it is beneficial or problematic for your individual bird.

Not wanting to fly might be because he's had so many bad experiences with it. When people want to teach an older bird to fly, it can be helpful to encourage very short flights over a soft surface like a bed, so the bird doesn't have painful crashes.


Good point about the long isolated feather. I actually just clip the tips (maybe an inch or so) off the first three or four flight feathers, so they're still pretty long/provide protection. He can still actually get really good distance. The only reason I still do it is because of the incidents where he crashed into the ceiling and fell all the way down. That was terrifying. A vet also taught me to clip the tip of the blood feathers as they are coming in so they aren't as vulnerable/have protection. This latest incident was so weird because this particular blood feather had been growing in for a month. It was almost all the way in! That's why I think he has some permanent damage. Any other suggestions would be welcome, though!

Haha! I didn't think about his reflection! He has a pretty good track record with mirrors and likes to sing to them. Another factor might be that he fell in love with a stuffed animal that I have. When he's in his aquarium, I stick the stuffed animal right against the glass, so that might contribute to having another flock member's protection, too. It's like a security blanket for him.

I've been working on gradually encouraging him to fly longer distances, but he just seems so hesitant. I love the idea about using a bed, though. I'll have to try that!


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 Post subject: Re: New Here!
PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 12:23 pm 
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Bluekeet wrote:
tielfan wrote:
Cockatiels do NOT like sneezes lol. My birds have heard me do it a million times and it still sets them off.

True. Jaid goes flying every time I sneeze.

I know you. You're from TC. I'm the mod CaliTiels over there if you haven't guessed.


Oh, yes! I remember you! I haven't really gone back to TC since the incident with that one member. It kind of turned me off, even though I understand that is no longer an issue there (or here). Good to see you here, though!


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 Post subject: Re: New Here!
PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 12:32 pm 
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JessiMuse wrote:
Alex has in some ways gotten better and in other ways gotten a little worse. We just recently got a new dog which has made Alex super anxious and getting her out of the cage is a challenge within itself, even when the dog is outside (there's always been a dog since I've had her, but that dog is smaller and also fairly afraid of birds, which both my tiels are well aware of. New dog however, is neither small nor afraid).

She has some damaged follicles as well due to being plucked by the parents, and still has bald spots on her wings. I'm hoping that they may eventually heal. The flight feathers however have managed to grow back so hopefully they can stay there.

Alex isn't that bad compared to a tiel I used to have named Pecky. He was the last clipped bird I owned before deciding to keep the next one (which was Lucy) fully-flighted. He also hit the ceiling when he flew, and would sometimes have random flighty moments where he'd freak out, then upon landing on the floor he would pant really quickly (not sure if he was hyperventilating or if a bird just pants like that). I would pick him up and pet him to calm him down. Oddly enough he wouldn't let me touch him unless if I had my hand over his body. Kinda acted like a security blanket. Otherwise my hands would automatically be seen as something scary and he would attack if they were near. He was a rescue though and was adopted from our local humane society (which actually took in birds oddly enough?). Even then, Pecky still wasn't the first anxious bird I've had. Or anxious animal in general.

Long story short, I've dealt with a lot of anxious animals, including birds.


Back on the topic with Zappy though...

From what I've seen, birds with better control in flying tend to be more confident. My other tiel Lucy (the bird in my signature) is fully flighted and also very skilled at it, not to mention that she loves to fly whenever she's out of the cage (she'll fly around the room, through the kitchen and back just because she feels like it). Not to mention she tries to come out of the cage when I'm changing food and water regardless if the dogs are there or not. Ironically she's not as "flighty" as Alex is. I mean she is flighty in the sense that she'll fly when startled... :lol: But she doesn't necessarily startle as easily.

It's quite possible that the anxiety stems from not learning how to fly properly when fledged. Perhaps learning to better control his flight will help with the anxiety. I kept Alex flighted when I got her, though she's always struggled. She started to get better at flying... up until she started getting night frights from dislodging the feathers in her wings for three times now. Since then progress has slowed, if not gone backwards altogether, but we'll get there eventually.

It sounds like you're doing a great job with Zappy though. :) I'd love to hear about some of the other methods that have worked for Zappy's anxiety. Maybe I could use them on some of the anxious animals I work with.

Also do you by any chance have septic powder on you? That'll be useful in cases where he may be at risk when it comes to the bleeding. I use it mainly when we have to clip some toenails in case one gets clipped a little too short, but I think it would be helpful if he ends up damaging a lot of blood feathers. I think corn starch does the same thing? I can't remember though. Hopefully someone can confirm that with me.


I bought a huge bag of corn starch and always have that ready to go. I'm pretty sure that bag has saved his life on several occasions. It sounds like Alex is going through something similar to Zap, but you're probably much calmer than I was at handling it. I had two budgies while I was a kid (one just died a few months ago at the age of 13), and they never had a single night fright. Heck, I can't ever even remember seeing them bleed! So having a cockatiel that used to bleed on a weekly if not daily basis has been an experience! I wouldn't trade little Zap for anything, though. Pecky sounds A LOT like Zap, except Zappy craves human contact.

I would definitely be happy to share some of what I have tried with Zap at some point soon. Like I said, it involved a lot of exposure therapy and is kind of an ongoing process. It helps that he can be bribed with incredibly strange things...like socks. He LOVES socks and basically anything fabric related. Laundry day is like Christmas to him.


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 Post subject: Re: New Here!
PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 1:33 pm 
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Zappy'sOwner wrote:
I understand that is no longer an issue there (or here).


Yep. We fixed both. :bigsmile100:



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 Post subject: Re: New Here!
PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 4:58 pm 
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what makes me think that we're talking about Brandon?
:roffle: :roffle: :roffle:

It's best to use cornstarch or flour on flesh wounds, so that's what you should go for if the bleeding is coming from the base of the feather. It's fine to stuff a bleeding nail with styptic powder (Kwik Stop) but it can cause chemical burns on flesh. It would be OK to put it in the shaft of a broken blood feather, but it's really better to just pull those out.



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 Post subject: Re: New Here!
PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 5:15 pm 
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Welcome, Zappy's Owner!
Is Em short for Emma or Emmanuel?
Sorry if I am being obnoxious with this question :) Old confusion with English not being gender specific



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 Post subject: Re: New Here!
PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:33 pm 
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Cockatiels are strange little birds, aren't they? :lol: Of all things I've heard about cockatiels liking, I would've never expected socks.

Alex isn't to the point where she bleeds weekly (hopefully she doesn't ever get that bad). I mean during the times she had some pretty bad night frights within a few nights from each other, I found dried blood all over the cage.

The things I've found to help Alex the most is low light and music. When I got Alex while she was still being weaned, she'd have moments where she would make the "feed me" cry even when she had been fed and didn't want any food. My guess is that she was crying for some kind of company. Or attention. The latter seems very likely because she is actually a huge attention hog, and acknowledgement within itself is like a treat to her. On the bright side this makes it easier too convince her to do things like fly to me, but trying to keep her out of things is a different story, since she notices that she gets my attention when she does something bad (and it's not like you can ignore them when they're chewing on your mom's orchids or something).
But during these times where she'd cry for reasons other than food, I would basically have her sit on one hand while I cup the other over her head, then rock back and forth while I hummed a specific tune. I did this also to keep her quiet when the baby food was being microwaved at the time, and it had actually worked out well.
So this basically became the go-to method for calming Alex down, and I've found that she loves being in small dark areas in general. My guess is because it feels like being in a nest box, or the fact that in the wild, they nest in tree hallows (which is basically the reason why we commonly use nest boxes when breeding them in the first place, I think).

I have seen what appears to be a bird version of occupational therapy done. There's a dove that was once at a rescue in San Fransisco suffering from "torticollis", which makes it hard for them to hold their head right. It disorients them to no end, and for the dove in particular, caused him to have panic attacks. Since the torticollis prevented him from knowing which way was up basically, he wouldn't really fly. Just kinda tumble backwards.
Here are the articles you can read about him:
http://www.pigeonrescue.org/2014/12/21/ ... g-problem/
http://www.pigeonrescue.org/2015/03/11/ ... -recovery/
http://www.pigeonrescue.org/2016/02/08/ ... -big-news/
You may notice in the first two articles, they called Bell a female. Well they ended up finding out he's actually male in the end, which explained why his original "mate" was aggressive at times. :lol:

If Zap enjoys cloth-based stuff, I wonder if he would enjoy those little "bird tents" I always see.
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I guess it would be a similar concept to having little blanket caves for that dove in the articles I showed above (minus the torticollis of course). Although for parrots like cockatiels, there is the risk of having it encourage nesting behavior. For a male cockatiel that would mean becoming a little more aggressive and territorial of his "nest". However that isn't always the case, and if you do find him to start acting a little more aggressive than usual, then the problem would be fixed easily by removing the tent (though it'd take a few days to get the aggressiveness out of his system.
Nesting behavior is basically the reason why I haven't really gotten one of these for Alex, despite her being calm in a dark and enclosed area. For female cockatiels, encouraging nesting behavior means laying eggs and well... that problem's a little harder to fix than a male being territorial. Lucy had just finished laying eggs this year, I don't need her to try again, nor have Alex start laying too (she's not old enough yet, but she's close). :lol:



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