# Uh Oh... am I in Trouble?



## imouto (Feb 24, 2014)

This is my baby's sixth day home. Every morning, he likes to flutter out of his cage and explore the bedroom floor. I let him do it, with supervision of course. Well this morning at some point I really spooked him when I was trying to keep him from going under the bed, and he broke a pin feather. I had to towel him in order to examine the damage and as quickly as I could, I ran to the pet store to get some kwik stop for the bleeding and some nutriberries as a sort of "I'm sorry" treat. Toweling him again in order to use the kwik stop was quite an ordeal as he screamed and bit at my hand as hard as he could. 

He's resting now, comfortable and fluffed up looking as though he;s ready for a nap. He had his crest up in the alert position for a few minutes, but he actually settled down quicker than i would have expected. Despite that though, I'm afraid I may have taken like 20 steps backwards in the process of all this. Do you think if I proceed to handle him gently and give him his space but still try to associate him with my hands that he will just forget about all of this and still be willing to work with me? I don't want this to be the reason he will never ever trust me.

Any suggestions or insight would be much appreciated. <3


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## Darkel777 (Jun 7, 2013)

imouto said:


> This is my baby's sixth day home. Every morning, he likes to flutter out of his cage and explore the bedroom floor. I let him do it, with supervision of course. Well this morning at some point I really spooked him when I was trying to keep him from going under the bed, and he broke a pin feather. I had to towel him in order to examine the damage and as quickly as I could, I ran to the pet store to get some kwik stop for the bleeding and some nutriberries as a sort of "I'm sorry" treat. Toweling him again in order to use the kwik stop was quite an ordeal as he screamed and bit at my hand as hard as he could.
> 
> He's resting now, comfortable and fluffed up looking as though he;s ready for a nap. He had his crest up in the alert position for a few minutes, but he actually settled down quicker than i would have expected. Despite that though, I'm afraid I may have taken like 20 steps backwards in the process of all this. Do you think if I proceed to handle him gently and give him his space but still try to associate him with my hands that he will just forget about all of this and still be willing to work with me? I don't want this to be the reason he will never ever trust me.
> 
> Any suggestions or insight would be much appreciated. <3


He will forget and get over it. Some cockatiels like to be handled and others don't, they don't really have that sort of memory to hold a grudge. Although, there are some extreme cases that can cause a bird to fear humans altogether, it doesn't sound like that's what happened here.

For broken bloodfeathers I pull them with needle-nose pliers. A little crude, but it stops the bleeding immediately which is what is important.


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## Janalee (Jul 25, 2012)

*am I in trouble?*

I think you will be okay. Bennie might hold a grudge for just a little while when I have to towel him for something, but he does forgive me. I just try to give him a little extra loving (and the Nutriberries was a good idea!) Any special treat they like is a good make-up gift!


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## RexiesMuM (Sep 7, 2011)

Never use quick stop on blood feathers it stings and is only really meant for nails that get trimmed down to far . Try some corn starch or flour for blood feathers .


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## imouto (Feb 24, 2014)

Oh phew! I just got back from work and it seems he ate the nutriberry right up and then some.  He also seems to be his normal inquisitive self, still afraid of my hands but no more than he really was before. It's only been a week so I know it'll definitely take more time for him to get used to me. 

I've never pulled out a blood feather and I was way too afraid of hurting him to do it, but I wanted to make sure the bleeding stopped before I went to work. I am bringing him for a check-up tomorrow so I will ask them to look at the feather and show me how to pull it out. 

Thanks guys


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