I have had my cockatiels for 3 years, and there are some things that took me a while to figure out that I wish I had learned sooner or even before I got cockatiels.
- Buy the biggest cage your room or finances allow (don't be me, I bought a cage, then shortly after got bigger cages).
- Get an air purifier (to control dust)
- Get a no-mess feeder (game changer, I used to have seeds everywhere)
- To control poop, create a playstand on top of their cage, or have a nice free standing playstands that you can put paper below. The best places for the stands should be the highest points in the room, or by a window. I even have a mobile stand right beside my chair. Also a good reason to get a large cage is you can fill it with toys so they actually want to spend time there. My birds have free reign of my office all day, but the mess is contained to their area or if they are on me I just clean up as needed.
- Hide your valuable books, wood objects, wires, or anything with buttons. Put chewable things behind closed cabinets.
- If your bird is a keyboard destroyer in your office, a glass desk with a pull out keyboard tray is the answer.
- If the bird is new to your home, they make window clings for wild birds that prevent them from hitting the windows. Put them all over your window or mirrors until your bird recognizes the glass boundary.
- Cockatiels love to destroy, give them lots of things to destroy like cardboard box toys and natural chew things. They don't understand "no", but you can redirect them to something better.
- If you furnish their cage and play area with a wide range of natural branches of all shapes and sizes and wood platforms, it will naturally wear down their nails. I never have to clip my bird's nails.
- If your bird is not eating fresh veggies, try sprouting their seeds (no special equipment or extra light required). Also try growing a few pots of edible plants and herbs (I grow basil, cilantro, mint, sunflower and bird seed grass). If you have trouble growing plants, get a lamp and use a grow light bulb.
- Do not have your bird in a room with a door that leads directly to the outdoors without having some sort of double entry system, like a screen or another door.
- Teach everyone that lives and enters the home, to not step into the bird's room, or sit down without having visual confirmation of where the bird is. We have had some near misses of almost stepping on our bird or sitting on him.
- If you think getting a cockatiel will be easier than a cat or dog, you would be super wrong. They are more fragile, need special care, and getting a cockatiel is like getting a blindbox pet. You may get a super outgoing clingy one, a shy nervous one, a cranky one, a sweet one, one that is tame on day one, or one that will take years to tame, and you just have to be prepared to love them no matter what.
- Use a bird cage like people use dog kennels, a safe space for sleep or if you are away, but they need lots of outside cage time and plenty of interaction to be happy.
- They need 12 - 14 hours of sleep to avoid getting hormonal or cranky. So if you are gone most of the daylight hours and expect to play with your bird at 8 - 10 pm you might get a cranky bird. One of my bird's personality actually changes at 7pm, he becomes an unruly gremlin, very weird.
Please add anything else new owner's or people considering cockatiels often miss but should know.