# Very small male. How much will he grow?



## TooliTiel (Oct 17, 2016)

My new baby male is about 3-4 months old. He seems small, only weighs about 82 grams but is filling out some. He's been successfully converted to pellets and has tried and enjoyed a few different fresh foods. 

I ordered a flight suit for him in Medium figuring he would grow into it but it is so incredibly baggy on him I don't see how he'll grow to fit that. Medium was what is recommended for adult cockatiels.

I took his measurements and contacted the Flight Suit company. He's 5 inches girth and about 3 1/2 inches length from nape to base of tail. He does need to gain a little weight, but he's not much underweight for his size. He has seen a vet and gotten gram stain when we took him home a few weeks ago.

The new small size flight suit will arrive tomorrow, I'm really hoping it fits. But he's so small I'm worried it might not, even though I gave his measurements to the person and they said I should try small. They would not let me exchange the suit (it was a clearance item) but did let me have free shipping on the new suit.

How much does a young cockatiel grow as he matures into an adult? How much more should I expect him to grow at this age? And is it normal for cockatiels to sometimes be this small? He's a normal gray if that makes a difference.


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## littletiel (May 15, 2011)

When I bought my baby he was 10 weeks old and the breeder told me he would not grow much after 10 weeks.
He is very small, about 75 grams, but very healthy. They say that cockatiels can weigh anything between 70 and 120 grams. They don't all weigh the same, just like humans don't. It is important that they are proportioned, but 82 grams is pretty normal, so you don't have to worry.
I think the small size will be just fine.


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## TooliTiel (Oct 17, 2016)

Oh good, thanks for sharing that! I googled it, and cockatiel cottage had an estimated chart for baby weight growth and he was I think listed as the weight that typical 4-5 week old babies are so that made me nervous!

Plus flight suits say cockatiels under 6 months should try small, and over 6 months should be a medium which seems like an awful lot of growth so I wasn't too sure if he'd be growing much more.


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## shaenne (Apr 19, 2014)

My girl is a year and a half and she holds steady at 82 grams


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

So in the wild, an 82g cockatiel is normal. It's only in captivity that they get bigger than that and it's NOT normal for them. Breeders have focused for years on breeding huge tiels and are only now realizing how far from the true cockatiel they are getting. In recent years, they have started scaling back their birds to the smaller tiel. 

All this really means is that your tiel is normal sized, not small. For the aviator I got for my tiels, I got the petite size because none of my birds except for one was heavier than 90gs. Honestly, he's probably not going to get much bigger, but you can always sell the bigger flight suit online or at a bird show to someone who can use it.


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