The cockatiels won't be quiet lately. They keep screaming and screaming. I don't even know why, I think they want out or something. But they've even started screaming while I'm at college and there's only my parents there.

My mom and dad have never even LET them before.

It's gotten to an unbearable level, and now even Dudley will scream along. How do I get them to stop?

The most important thing is DON'T react to the screaming in any way. That just teaches them that they'll get some attention if they scream long enough. Wait until they stop screaming and pay attention to them when they're being quiet or making sounds that they like. If screaming has been getting results for them in the past, the problem might get worse before it gets better. This is called an extinction burst, when the bird ramps up its efforts doing the thing that always got results in the past but has suddenly stopped working. It usually takes three days for them to realize that it doesn't work any more and they need to give it up.

Yeah. They're so stubborn though, that when once they are quiet, they'll start screaming again as soon as I do so much as stand up.

We've actually just moved them to a different room. It's not quite as busy in there as it is in their original place. They seem to be reacting better to this room ironically. Probably because they can't see me.

It should also be more convenient because it's usually the place I bring them to when I take them out of the cage.

Did they start screaming after the move, or did the move take place because of the screaming? If the screaming started after the move, then not seeing you is probably the reason that they're doing it.

No, it took place before the move. They actually stopped screaming when we moved them. They would start screaming every time someone entered the room, though.

I usually in there for the most part though, and I would be even closer to their cage now. Hopefully they'll be ok with being in their cage when I'm in the room. They won't be seeing my parents that often while I'm gone, so hopefully they won't be screaming while I'm gone.

This morning, I heard them screaming before I woke up. I decided to wait and see if they would stop before I go in there, but they wouldn't. Finally, I decided to go in there and ignore them completely. I got my laptop and sat on the couch next to their cage, and waited for windows to finish installing updates (it was doing so all night). Their screams became less constant, until they FINALLY became quiet. I decided to reward them with out of cage time. They're on the table with me right now, eating vegetables and getting into whatever they can get into (as usual).

It literally took them an entire day for them to get quiet. Yesterday they screamed until sundown, when it was their bed time. I didn't let them out of the cage at all, so I expected them to be extra crabby about it today, but that seemed to be the opposite. They're doing pretty well.

They're still getting used to the new cage location. Lucy keeps flying into the kitchen where the cage originally was, and then realize it's not there, so she would end up flying around the room a few times before landing on the table again. We have an old dress form in the room that we're trying to get rid of as well, which I'm sure looks like a scary monster to them right now.

Is it possible that one of your neighbors has a new cockatiel and they're responding to its calls? If your birds will shut up for a few minutes you can listen for cockatiel calls coming from outside.

Maybe. We don't usually have the windows open, so not sure how they would hear one. There's a bird out there that has a similar type of call out there, so they could be hearing that one out there.

I'm pretty sure they're mainly screaming to get out of the cage. I've been doing the wrong thing by doing exactly what they want, so now it's a pretty bad habit that I'm hoping to get them to break.

They could hear it through the walls

Another thing to bear in mind regarding an extinction burst: Behavior that has been reinforced at random, unpredictable times is harder to extinguish than behavior that has been reinforced regularly.

It sounds like you are doing the right things to try to extinguish the screaming.

Some screaming is due to it getting the bird what it wants. But there is also some screaming that the bird does for its own (unknown to us) reasons. So, not all screaming can be extinguished. But it should be able to be lessened.

I sound like I know something about animal behavior, and it's funny, because I learned a lot about it in college. It's applying it that is the problem though. I mean, look at how unsuccessful I have been with Emma.

In the movie, "Out of Africa" one of the characters (a native African tribal man) says to Meryl Streep (a Dutch woman who wants to teach the African children to read), "the English can read, but what good has it done them?" That's how I see my ability to actually apply what I have learned. However, I shall certainly keep trying