# new first time cockatiel owner needing advice..



## vixtory (Mar 27, 2010)

Hi everyone, on Monday this week I bought my first cockatiel.. we think its a male ( bought from pet store and they didn't know sex ).. on Monday we let him settle in to his new cage and surroundings but on Tuesday we did let him out to fly about our room. When it was time to put him back in his cage my partner did manage to get him to sit on his finger and storm stayed there right until he was placed in his cage. Same happened on wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On Saturday we let him out a night ( room lights were on etc ) but he seemed to panic and crashed down behind our fish tank.. we left him alone for a while to recover from his crash landing but had to eventually pick him up with a towel because he wouldn't go on the finger.. today we let him have his daily freedom but when we tried to get him on our finger he wouldn't step up and got rather aggressive.. have we done something wrong to upset him do you think? Or do you think he could have been upset still from saturdays crash landing.. we did manage to get him to step up eventually but all the time he was biting, I just don't like using a towel to catch him with.


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## poohdog (May 16, 2010)

Keep the bird in it's cage for a week or two to settle in.Handling is not good at this stage until he really knows you,especially with a towel...give the bird time.Your room is a big unknown to the bird at the moment...feed lots of treats through the bars for now to grow confidence.


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## tinamary (Aug 17, 2008)

Have a piece of red ribbon on your hand and a treat so when you handle him he will associate the ribbon with a nice tasty treat. Eventually he will come to the ribbon wherever it is.


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