tiel newbie
09-30-2008, 01:47 AM
Hi. I got a tiel on the 16th of August and have been having a lot of problems with him since. He refuses to become at all tame and lately(within the past week or so) has been flock calling non-stop ALL DAY LONG. I'm wondering what I can do, since he is honestly starting to drive me insane with the constant calling.
-His cage is around(unsure specifics!) 32"X21"X35"
-He has about 10 toys in it, and 4 on top. Preening ones, a shiny bell, shredding ones, wooden blocks/twigs to chew on, a ball that is made of rope ball that has fibers inside for him to pull out, a bird kabob(yucca wood) and has a sand perch, 3 wooden branches(one stripped wood of some sort, one manzanita and one fir, plus a couple of ropes.
-he gets fresh water 2x daily and fresh food(seed mix until he tames down then I was going to work on pellets. he gets veggies but so far is ignoring them) is always available in his bowl.
-If he's IN his cage and the door is open, he stays in. If he is OUT of his cage and the door is open he stays out. No matter how long things stay that way.
-I've been TRYING to tame him since I got him, but am not getting anywhere with him.
-he IS clipped. When I got him he got loose and was banging into all of the walls hard enough to knock himself to the ground, fly back up and keep doing it over and over.
-when I first got him, I was sitting in the same room as he was in and just ignoring him for at least a few hours a day so he could get used to me being near him before I started to try to tame him.
I started by putting a stick of millet over his food dish. It was gone really quickly. So I tried giving him a stick, a full, nearly 10" long stick, by holding one end and offering him the other end and he runs from it. Still(so I tried just giving him enough food for the day and trying before I gave him breakfast. No go, so I started filling his bowl again). Tried giving him a smaller bit. Nope. Tried getting him out and offering it. Nope. If anything and he's out and I try to give him some he hisses and strikes at it. If I try to get him on me in his cage he usually runs. If I can get him he uses me to walk somewhere else and go away. If I take him OUT of his cage, he tries to get back to it and if he does just runs from me. If I take him away from view of his cage he'll sit and sulk on me(head down, crest pinned to his head) for a while until he gets hungry, THEN he takes millet from me. But if I try to keep him with me that long and then take him in view of his cage he flies back to it and runs when I try to get near him again.
With the screaming. It is a constant, all day long flock call. So I walk into the room(I know you aren't supposed to, but he will literally go on and on for the entire 8+ hours that the sun is up with the same 1-2 pitch whistle only stopping when he eats or wants to attack a toy out of frustration, NOT singing) and he hides. Try to give him millet. Nope. Try to get him out and he doesn't want to. Get him out, put him on top of his cage and leave. He starts to call again. Go back in the room, he runs away from me. Try to give him millet. He refuses. Try to get him to step up(he will willingly sometimes, and won't try to at all other times) and he either doesn't and keeps running from me or will and flies straight back to the cage from me. Tonight he was in an "I don't wanna" mood and when I tried to get him to step up he bit ME hard enough that he drew blood. And then ran around the cage until I ended up getting frustrated and more than a bit angry and gave up. Came back into my room and a few minutes later he started to call again. Went in and covered him(another thing I know you aren't supposed to do, but I was about ready to take his cage outside and leave him for a couple of hours) since he refused to come near me STILL and a few minutes later(and until the sun went down) he was calling AGAIN. About the only way I've found to keep him from doing it within a few minutes again is to make him step up and put him in/out of his cage depending on where he was before, and even then he's usually back to it again within a half hour.
What can I do? Within the past week some personal problems have come up that are stressing me out, and his attitude is starting to wear thin as a result. So far the only way he'll sit on me for more than half a minute or so is if I am dead still and he can't see his cage, and that was already beginning to slightly frustrate me, but now with his new habit, not only am I starting to stress, but my roommates are starting to get fed up with him as well(besides the thought that I live in an apartment and can't BELIEVE that no one has complained to the management about his constant yelling. You can hear him through all of our walls, so I can only assume the neighbours can hear him too!). Not to mention that I was already starting to feel like I am failing him because in nearly a month and a half he'll only step up once in a while and will only accept food from me if he's been without it for a few hours and away from his house. If he's off of it(on another cage that I use as a playstand) it is the same way. He's off in his own little world and doesn't want to be near me. Most of the time if I even LOOK at him he backs up(I've never hit his cage, I've never thrown anything at him, I've never sprayed him with something when he's yelling, I've never yelled at him and neither have either of my roommates) if he sees me doing it.
Is there ANY way to quiet him down? When I was looking into getting a small parrot, a lot of people recommended tiels saying that once they adjust that they are more or less quiet, that they only call a few minutes a day(like my conure, who is about half as loud as he is when she gets going, will hush after a few minutes without any response and ONLY calls to me when I'm out of the room) and that the rest of the time that they are making noise that they are doing a quieter song to themselves/their flock. Was I just influenced by a bunch of rabid tiel lovers, or did I just happen to find an anti-social tiel, or when I was told that they were "quiet" was that comparing them to the cockatoos that they didn't say they also owned?
I'm nearing my wits end. I don't know what to do with him. My conure is great. She likes to play with me and sit with/on me. And I figured I could handle a second bird in the house, especially in another couple of weeks when he's out of QT and I don't need to go to 2 rooms to clean cages and feed in the morning and at night. Would getting him a friend help, or make it worse(I've read in a few places online that once people got a second bird of the same species, their first one got quieter, even if they were not friends with each other, though with the budgies I had when I was a kid it was the opposite. The first one was like my tiel is and would scream all day because she didn't want to be around people, so my parents bought a second one. They fought all the time at first, which was a lot louder, and then once they got used to each other they tried to out-chatter each other until my parents got sick of the noise and gave them away)? Besides locking him in a closet all day where it is dark(and cruel to him!) so he is quiet, is there anything else I can do to get him to quiet down?
-His cage is around(unsure specifics!) 32"X21"X35"
-He has about 10 toys in it, and 4 on top. Preening ones, a shiny bell, shredding ones, wooden blocks/twigs to chew on, a ball that is made of rope ball that has fibers inside for him to pull out, a bird kabob(yucca wood) and has a sand perch, 3 wooden branches(one stripped wood of some sort, one manzanita and one fir, plus a couple of ropes.
-he gets fresh water 2x daily and fresh food(seed mix until he tames down then I was going to work on pellets. he gets veggies but so far is ignoring them) is always available in his bowl.
-If he's IN his cage and the door is open, he stays in. If he is OUT of his cage and the door is open he stays out. No matter how long things stay that way.
-I've been TRYING to tame him since I got him, but am not getting anywhere with him.
-he IS clipped. When I got him he got loose and was banging into all of the walls hard enough to knock himself to the ground, fly back up and keep doing it over and over.
-when I first got him, I was sitting in the same room as he was in and just ignoring him for at least a few hours a day so he could get used to me being near him before I started to try to tame him.
I started by putting a stick of millet over his food dish. It was gone really quickly. So I tried giving him a stick, a full, nearly 10" long stick, by holding one end and offering him the other end and he runs from it. Still(so I tried just giving him enough food for the day and trying before I gave him breakfast. No go, so I started filling his bowl again). Tried giving him a smaller bit. Nope. Tried getting him out and offering it. Nope. If anything and he's out and I try to give him some he hisses and strikes at it. If I try to get him on me in his cage he usually runs. If I can get him he uses me to walk somewhere else and go away. If I take him OUT of his cage, he tries to get back to it and if he does just runs from me. If I take him away from view of his cage he'll sit and sulk on me(head down, crest pinned to his head) for a while until he gets hungry, THEN he takes millet from me. But if I try to keep him with me that long and then take him in view of his cage he flies back to it and runs when I try to get near him again.
With the screaming. It is a constant, all day long flock call. So I walk into the room(I know you aren't supposed to, but he will literally go on and on for the entire 8+ hours that the sun is up with the same 1-2 pitch whistle only stopping when he eats or wants to attack a toy out of frustration, NOT singing) and he hides. Try to give him millet. Nope. Try to get him out and he doesn't want to. Get him out, put him on top of his cage and leave. He starts to call again. Go back in the room, he runs away from me. Try to give him millet. He refuses. Try to get him to step up(he will willingly sometimes, and won't try to at all other times) and he either doesn't and keeps running from me or will and flies straight back to the cage from me. Tonight he was in an "I don't wanna" mood and when I tried to get him to step up he bit ME hard enough that he drew blood. And then ran around the cage until I ended up getting frustrated and more than a bit angry and gave up. Came back into my room and a few minutes later he started to call again. Went in and covered him(another thing I know you aren't supposed to do, but I was about ready to take his cage outside and leave him for a couple of hours) since he refused to come near me STILL and a few minutes later(and until the sun went down) he was calling AGAIN. About the only way I've found to keep him from doing it within a few minutes again is to make him step up and put him in/out of his cage depending on where he was before, and even then he's usually back to it again within a half hour.
What can I do? Within the past week some personal problems have come up that are stressing me out, and his attitude is starting to wear thin as a result. So far the only way he'll sit on me for more than half a minute or so is if I am dead still and he can't see his cage, and that was already beginning to slightly frustrate me, but now with his new habit, not only am I starting to stress, but my roommates are starting to get fed up with him as well(besides the thought that I live in an apartment and can't BELIEVE that no one has complained to the management about his constant yelling. You can hear him through all of our walls, so I can only assume the neighbours can hear him too!). Not to mention that I was already starting to feel like I am failing him because in nearly a month and a half he'll only step up once in a while and will only accept food from me if he's been without it for a few hours and away from his house. If he's off of it(on another cage that I use as a playstand) it is the same way. He's off in his own little world and doesn't want to be near me. Most of the time if I even LOOK at him he backs up(I've never hit his cage, I've never thrown anything at him, I've never sprayed him with something when he's yelling, I've never yelled at him and neither have either of my roommates) if he sees me doing it.
Is there ANY way to quiet him down? When I was looking into getting a small parrot, a lot of people recommended tiels saying that once they adjust that they are more or less quiet, that they only call a few minutes a day(like my conure, who is about half as loud as he is when she gets going, will hush after a few minutes without any response and ONLY calls to me when I'm out of the room) and that the rest of the time that they are making noise that they are doing a quieter song to themselves/their flock. Was I just influenced by a bunch of rabid tiel lovers, or did I just happen to find an anti-social tiel, or when I was told that they were "quiet" was that comparing them to the cockatoos that they didn't say they also owned?
I'm nearing my wits end. I don't know what to do with him. My conure is great. She likes to play with me and sit with/on me. And I figured I could handle a second bird in the house, especially in another couple of weeks when he's out of QT and I don't need to go to 2 rooms to clean cages and feed in the morning and at night. Would getting him a friend help, or make it worse(I've read in a few places online that once people got a second bird of the same species, their first one got quieter, even if they were not friends with each other, though with the budgies I had when I was a kid it was the opposite. The first one was like my tiel is and would scream all day because she didn't want to be around people, so my parents bought a second one. They fought all the time at first, which was a lot louder, and then once they got used to each other they tried to out-chatter each other until my parents got sick of the noise and gave them away)? Besides locking him in a closet all day where it is dark(and cruel to him!) so he is quiet, is there anything else I can do to get him to quiet down?