She might not want to step up just simply because she's at an independent age. Her clutchmates aren't that enthusiastic about stepping up right now either. Some of them will fly to me and land on me, but would rather not step up. Whatever the reason is, she'll get past it if you keep working with her. Not wanting to go back in the cage could definitely be a reason, there's a lot of that going on with the chicks that I still have and it makes for an interesting session when I need to get everybody in the cage.

Ah I see. Well, I hope some day we can get there.

I can't imagine how crazy it might be to put so many birds back into their cage. If trying to chase around one bird isn't crazy enough, trying to catch multiple birds must be hectic.

Well considering she didn't try to fly away from me, I guess it is an improvement. I did let her have some time on my shoulder to practice her barber skills (thankfully she didn't climb onto my head this time). She stepped up onto my hand from my shoulder, which is quite surprising, because you'd think she would prefer to stay there, playing with my hair. I clicked and rewarded her, of course.

For anyone who was curious, Lucy is coming along quite nicely. She's doing really well with target training. I've gotten her to climb all the way down from her high perch, to the low perch, to touch the target. I've also gotten her to step up a couple times.

I decided to use a combination of the lure method and clicker condition to start the stepping up process. I've used the treat to lure her to my hand, and if her foot does so much as brush up against my hand. I got her to put one foot on my finger. Progress has started.

Lately, she has been incredibly vocal. She chirps constantly, throughout the day, and more frequently when my dad's clocks go off (one of his clocks sing, which seems to be her favorite). Some of them sound a little bit sing-songy, though most are the usual tiel-chirps. Any reason on why she is being so vocal? Is it for attention? Or is she trying to call for other 'tiels? She stops around late afternoon. Could she just be doing it for the sake of making noise (because it seems some birds like to do that)?

It's a sign that she's settling into her new home! A nervous bird in an unfamiliar place will usually be very quiet, trying not to attract the attention of any predators that might be hanging around. But now she's decided that it's safe to make noise. She's used to being in a noisy flock so it probably seems pretty quiet to her lol.

Well, Dudley's not much of a chatter himself, except for the noises he likes to make on occasion, which range from soft grunting noises to loud, high-pitch screeching noises. Crazy thing is, she doesn't do it when he's making noise. Only when he's not.

I answered her chirps today, with short whistling noises. She had the most confused look I've ever seen on her. She would fall silent for a few seconds, then chirp again to see if I will do it again. I try to mimic her chirp the best I can with my whistling, so it would feel to her that she's answering her own kind. I'm not sure if it actually feels that way to her, but she seems interested when I try to chirp. Sometimes, she'll stay silent, so I'll chirp, and she chirps back.

I've gotten a picture of her using her foot to eat a piece of spinach while holding it with her foot. She's actually quite capable of lifting it higher than she is in the picture, as I've seen her do with the pine cone.

I'm starting to wonder if Lucy is a good bird for me. I've been working with her every day, and I still feel like there has been no progress, regarding trust. Yeah, she'll train while inside of the cage, but when she's outside, she's still afraid of me, and she's even gone back to trying to fly away from me. I feel like I'm going nowhere. When I first got her, while she didn't let me take her far, she still stepped up onto my hand. Then, she would refuse to step up on my hand while in the cage, but stepped up while out of the cage. Now, no matter where she is, she'll run away from my hands. I'm still at the age where I have to pick her up and take her out.

I know I haven't had her long, but I'm starting to wonder if our personalities just don't mix. Carolyn, do you think it would be too soon to bring her back to you, in exchange for a different bird?

That's up to you to decide really. Right now I only have three chicks who are ready to go anywhere, but there are 12 more who should be weaned in a couple of weeks. Her brothers Chester and Shoji are friendly (the third weaned chick, Mystery, is still in the "touch me not" stage). But some of the younger chicks are friendlier still.

Yesterday was just a really frustrating day, which started with absolutely none of the animals wanting to cooperate. I'll take a couple weeks to decide, though. Chances are, I'm going to keep her, but I'll still think about it, for her sake.

Today was a huge improvement, after yesterday's disaster. Things have been hard on Lucy, because I'm watching someone's dog, who is huge. He's 15 years old (very old for a large dog) and harmless, but the size is still enough to intimidate. In result, I haven't really given her as much out of cage time as I should. In another result, she's gained weight, and displays the sign of an overweight cockatiel.



She isn't too overweight though, because I can still feel her keel bone.

Well, I simply opened the cage door for her, and turned my back real quick, and at that point, she already flew out on her own. So that's a major improvement from before, where she wouldn't want to come out of the cage, and I had to grab her to take her out. She still didn't want to step up though, so I had to pick her up, and place her on top of her cage. I got a couple of the mirror toys I had to take out of her cage, as well as a larger toy that has a bunch of thin threads on it, which in my guess, it's probably a preening toy to distract feather pluckers, but since she loves to practice her barber skills so much with my hair, I thought she would like it. Like it, she definitely did. Didn't take her long to check it out. I'll letting her play with it during out-of-cage time.

I left the cage door open for her, in case if she wanted to go back in, and for a while, she didn't. She stayed up there, all fluffy, and grinding her beak, occasionally chewing all the fun toys I left out for her. I even got a couple of target touches in there. I was experimenting with the treats, because it seems the moist veggies has made her droppings a bit more clear and runny, so I was trying to find some dryer treats. I got some corn from Dudley's mix, as well as these things I like to call "bird biscuits", which are colorful pellets that are in certain shapes. Figured I might as well try, since Dudley doesn't even like them. Lucy ended up liking them more than the corn.

At one point, she decided to want to fly some more, and landed on the giant pillow used as a bed for the dog I'm watching. I put my hand down, let her step up. She decided to fly again, though she didn't get far. She finally stepped up that time. Of course, it was the one time where I didn't have the clicker and treats with me. I'll just have to carry a bag of treats, as well as the clicker, wherever I go, when she's out now lol

I was messing with the settings on my camera, and decided to try and take a picture of her with the "super vivid" setting on that intensifies colors, and accidentally turned the flash on. She didn't seem all that fazed, except for the feathers around her beak rising. It was when I tried getting closer shots with the flash off, when she didn't want to have anything to do with the camera. After some attempts of using the camera close up, that's when she decided to go back into her cage.



If I do end up keeping her, I'll look forward to indoor flight recall. I'm sure she would enjoy being able to fly easily again.

Also, before all this happened, I played some videos of wild cockatiels, and she got excited to hear them chirp. I wonder if that has anything to do with her willing to come out of the cage? Considering she grew up around Carolyn's 'tiels, I'd imagine it would sound very familiar to her, so it would make sense.

Lucy looks really cute in the picture! She's all relaxed and poofy.

It sounds like she's actually coming along pretty well. I've found that cockatiels don't settle in as quickly as budgies do, and it often takes a couple of months for them to really feel at home and start showing affection. If she gets a lot of out of cage time that should take care of any weight issues. Her parents usually weigh somewhere in the range of about 85-95 grams (it fluctuates) and Shodu occasionally goes a bit higher than that. If Lucy's weight is in that range she's probably fine, but if she starts weighing in at over 100 grams on a regular basis she might be overweight.

A lot of the seeds in a standard seed mix are actually grains which are low in fat. Sunflower/safflower have about 10 times as much fat as millet or oats. So if her weight really becomes an issue you could cut back on the high-fat seeds while letting her have as much as she wants of the low-fat ones.

Is she clipped? I'm serious. I had 3 baby cockatiels which I got from breeding. They were handfed and socialized to the extreme but they all three went through her stage. I swear, after I clipped their wings, they fully trusted me. They were extremely bonded to me and after I let their wings grow back, they stayed bonded to me. I highly recommend clipping for taming sake. It really does work and you can always let the wings grow back with her next molt (which is very soon anyways). It only takes 1 day to start seeing amazing results with her. She will instantly turn much calmer and willingly to proceed with taming. I recommend following my taming tutorial after clipping. She will amaze you.

The same happened with my sun conure. He would not let me put on the flight suit but after I clipped him we made extreme progress. I don't clip my birds for any reason besides for taming. I only clip them once and let them stay flightef for the rest of their lives.