Hey everyone,


Two days ago I drove me and my girlfriend down to Dorset after searching / calling almost every pet shop private add on the internet for 9 hours until we found a small Avery In Riverside that had a young 7 Week old Cockatiel ready for taming.

My girlfriends family have always been a bit pet obsessed and have had a range of different animals from bearded dragons to love birds and horses. Sadly they always opt for getting pre-tamed animals and have never tamed one on their own. (not surprising as the kids in that house are evil)

Anyway two months ago they got a male Cockatiel named "Gizzy" which had been hand fed and trained since birth. He's a very tame bird and they leave his cage open at all times letting him fly around freely, He's now two months old and I've got rather attached to him as he will always fly on my shoulder and just spend generally all his time with me.

Anyway moving on from all that to my own Cockatiel :P.

He's 7 weeks old yesterday and I've had him for 3 days now. I decided to call him CJ for a private reason which he seems to already respond to when I call for him. I haven't let him out his cage yet as I've read that it's best to let them get used to their surroundings before hounding them with attention. I sit next to his cage every night and talk to him for a bit and I refer to his name as much as possible when doing this so he knows I'm talking to him.

Last night I thought he seemed pretty relaxed so I placed my hand in the cage. He seemed very weary but didn't look very threatened, until of course I got closer. He seems to peck at my finger on occasion but doesn't seem to mind me getting very close when I'm feeding him millet. In fact when I'm feeding him millet he bows his head after and lets me stroke his back, but will not allow me to stroke his chest at all, he will instantly peck me and run to a corner until I feed him millet again

After a couple of hours of bonding me calling his name talking to him and feeding him millet he started to get a lot closer to me still biting me on occasion but stopping instantly after I call his name. He's started putting a lot of interest into the purch hanging from the top of the cage but he couldn't get there himself.

After about 10 minutes of bribery with the millet he literally jumped onto my finger and would let me carry him around the cage until he jumped off onto the purch. I found this funny because i've read alot of websites talking about taming a Cockatiel for the first time and it said that you should only really let them get used to your presence, try feeding them and maybe stroking them at first but CJ has seemed to skipped a few stages and already steps up, He will also step up and down from the purch and let me take him around the cage on my finger.

Like I said he's only 7 weeks old and I'm panicking incase I've done anything wrong which could affect him later in his life, do any of you have any tips which could help me improve our relationship even though it's only a short one so far. Or should I just back off him for awhile. He isn't pre-tamed.



Thanks so much.

Shamie