# are candles bad for my cockatiel?



## pammybaby (Jul 27, 2017)

i use regular tealights in my room quite a lot, and they're used for my wax melt which gives off a smell. ive been doing this for a while, more so around winter time cause its cozy, but then i heard somewhere that its bad for birds? i want to know if this is true because i have my cockatiel in my room very often, usually while its burning. (i also have a hedgehog in my room and i don't want him negatively affected either).
thanks.


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## littletiel (May 15, 2011)

I wouldn't use scented candles where my tiel is.
Sometimes I use incense, but not when he is in my room and I always keep the window open when I use incense, so the smell doesn't reach him.

If you don't keep your tiel in the cage it is obviously also dangerous as he/she could get burned and also tip the candle over and start a fire.


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## Oztiel (Sep 5, 2014)

Basically, I would treat anything that is outside of what is a cockatiel's natural environment as being suspect and work from there.

A web search will find you any amount of items that are toxic to the birds.

We tend to think subconsciously in terms of what we humans can tolerate.
It is quite a different matter for our little feathered (and spiky) pals.

Cockatiels are mischief on the wing and likely as not your little bird will be attracted to the candle. I don't even have ours in the kitchen while we are cooking due to the possibility of injury from a heat source.

One of them is there instantly to check it out, when I so much as turn on a tap. Once they are used to you, they are insatiable sticky beaks.
Please don't take risks like that.

Oztiel


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## pammybaby (Jul 27, 2017)

okay thank you, luckily the only problem i've ever had with pammy and the candle is when she puts it out when she flies, but shes never gone near it. and i've stopped using them in my room whenever they're around, i didn't really think about it but when you do it makes sense that something unnatural wont be good for them. 
thank you, you've been very helpful


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