Is there any food for cockatiels that don't contain wheat? Or is it very important for them to have it?

Oops I put this in the wrong area of the forum, I'm so sorry!

No problem, I'm not fussy about which part of the forum a post is in. I can move it if you want me to.

Are you looking for pellets that don't contain wheat, or are you talking about seed mixes? Dry wheat seeds are too hard for cockatiels to eat and it's annoying when seed companies put them in the mix. But "cockatiel food" is actually aimed at a lot of other small/medium birds, and some of them (like conures) have bigger beaks and can handle it.

No problem, I'm not fussy about which part of the forum a post is in. I can move it if you want me to.

Wow! Thank you so much! In the other forum, every little thing will be complained. I am embarrassed to say that I was like that as well! I have always wanted to mod on TC a while ago, that I tried to help enforce the rules which I went over board. I then realized how hard moderating was so I quit trying become a mod...

It would be nice if you can put it in the right area of the forum. I was looking at the breeding section of the thread, then I quickly remembered I had to post it and I forgot to go in the right section.

Are you looking for pellets that don't contain wheat, or are you talking about seed mixes? Dry wheat seeds are too hard for cockatiels to eat and it's annoying when seed companies put them in the mix. But "cockatiel food" is actually aimed at a lot of other small/medium birds, and some of them (like conures) have bigger beaks and can handle it.

I am talking about the seeds, I was in a rush that I forgot to put that information in as well.

Do you think a smaller bird diet won't contain wheat? I only need it for 8 days so its going to be temporarily.

The thread has been moved!

If this is for the babies, you could just give them the regular food and let them figure out for themselves what they can and can't handle. Some seeds will take longer to learn than others, but in the end they'll be able to eat everything the adults do.

Parakeet/budgie seed usually doesn't have wheat in it, so you could get a small bag of that. I got very tired of buying cockatiel seed with stuff in it that cockatiels can't actually eat, so I make my own seed mix. A basic parakeet mix containing millet, canary grass seed, and oat groats is the base, and I add several kinds of seed that I know my birds will eat. There's no waste other than a few seeds that get spilled on the floor.

That's why a lot of people are no longer on the other forum lol. The mods there are good people with good intentions, but I don't think they really understand that the rules are intended to create a comfortable atmosphere, and it has the opposite effect when they're enforced too enthusiastically

I really don't know what happened on TC but I know that the sight is not the same as it use to be. There are far fewer persons active on the site. I know that in the past things were said that were not as helpful as they could have been due to a lot of what I thought was immaturity. Most of the people I use to see on the site seem to be gone but the same undertone continues. It is unfortunate.

Carolyn--I am glad that you try to keep this sight positive and that your responses are always gentle and compassionate. I would love to see your sight grow

I would suppose that the majority of people accessing a sight such as this is doing so because they do care about their pet. They may not have the knowledge that they need or the resources available that are needed but they are trying to do the best they can within their means.

Here in Delaware, there are no Avian Vets except maybe in Newark about 50 miles from me. There is no emergency service for birds. There really are no good pet stores, except for Pert Smart which is ok. There may be breeders around but I can't find them. I have finally decided that I am going to have to learn to trim wings because there is no where I can go to get it done correctly, including the big bird farm in lower Delaware.

I still occasionally go to TC and sometimes post, and one thing I have noticed is that the questions are always the same, even though there are a lot of stickies that should help people when it comes to the most common and basic topics. A good 70% of the posts comes from people who refuse to read the stickies.
It looks like nobody reads them and this has to be very discouraging for a dedicated mod. I hope this will never happen here, but I guess it is normal when you attract such a big number of first-time bird keepers.

What kinds of seeds do you mix in? I buy Living Things for cockatiels. It's expensive and the birds don't end up eating it.

When I first joined, I had no clue what a sticky was, not even how to post in the correct sub forum. To be honest, I didn't know how to post in a forum. I would go on google and type "talk cockatiels new thread" and it took me there. I would always get annoyed by from this one particular mod that resigned because I had no clue how.

Back then, I got pm's almost everyday because the admins and mods said I was breaking the rules. It really hurt me when they called me rude.
Before this forum, I was on yahoo answers, and they were never stuck up on rules.

To be honest. The real reason I joined talk cockatiel forum was because I saw the most cutest signatures there and I tried figuring out how but only failing.
But, after a bit, I saw how much fun it is to finally talk to other bird lovers.

My feeling is that a lot of people simply don't know how to go searching for answers to their questions, other than asking about it on a forum. Some of the most basic questions have been answered thousands of times by now on a hundred different forums and in a hundred different online articles, but people will still ask the question instead of googling. At least it helps keep up the activity level on the forums lol, and occasionally there'll be a 'different' aspect to the situation to keep it interesting.

IMO the problem on TC is that they see the rules as an end in themselves and not as the means to an end. So they enforce the rules very strictly, instead of enforcing them when a violation is actually causing a problem and letting it slide when there's technically a violation but it's not doing any harm. This creates an oppressive atmosphere instead of the comfortable atmosphere that the rules are intended to promote. While I was a moderator there I spent months struggling behind the scenes to change this dynamic, and resigned as a moderator when I finally accepted that it wasn't going to change. About a year after that I stopped posting there because it was still going on and I couldn't take it any more.

When you go to the main board, each subforum shows the title of the thread with the most recent activity on the right side of the screen. For months now, the very first thread title that people see when they go to the forum is about punishment for trivial violations. That's a nice welcoming message that says a lot about the atmosphere there.