Cockatiel
Nymphicus hollandicus
Merlynn and Smoky's species: small, dusty, and endlessly sociable.
- Lifespan
- 15 to 25 years
- Length
- About 12 inches head to tail
- Cage bars
- Half to five eighths of an inch, horizontal bars to climb
- Sleep
- 10 to 12 hours, dark and quiet
- Noise
- Whistles and contact calls, not constant screaming
Pellets first, not seed
Roughly 60 to 70 percent quality cockatiel pellets, the rest fresh vegetables, with seed and millet kept for training. An all-seed diet is the most common cause of fatty liver disease.
Give them their ten hours
Ten to twelve hours of dark, uninterrupted sleep with the cage covered. Merlynn died from a night fright, where a sudden sound wakes a bird and it thrashes in the cage, so keep the room quiet at night and leave a dim light on.
Out of the cage, every day
A cockatiel is a flock animal. An hour or two of supervised time with you each day keeps one tame, calm and quiet. Left alone it gets bored, then loud, then destructive.
Clean air, always
Overheated non-stick pans, scented candles, air fresheners, aerosol sprays and smoke can kill a bird in a closed room. Their lungs cannot clear any of it.
Weigh them weekly
A cheap kitchen gram scale is the best early warning system you have. A steady drop means a vet visit long before a bird looks sick.
They are dusty birds
Cockatiels produce powder down. Offer a shallow dish or a light misting a few times a week, and run an air filter in the room.
