Keeping Your Cockatiel Healthy
Take into account yourself your bird’s cook, caterer, housekeeper, and taxi cab service. You can help your cockatiel live lengthier by providing him with healthy food, clean living conditions and a trip to the vet if needed. Cockatiels are generally healthy unless kept in unclean, crowded conditions or given incorrectly. Provide filtered sunlight during the day, fresh foods and water daily, and clean your cockatiel’s crate twice a week or more as needed. Get rid of uneaten fruit and vegetables from your bird’s cage within a couple of hours of feeding. Your bird may be sick if he’s dirty feathers, is sitting down fluffed up in a corner of his competition or has watery sight or diarrhea.
You (and Your Cockatiel) Are Just What You Eat
Pet parrots are often fed a convenient but “junk food” diet of packaged parrot seed, water, and resolution. Like humans, cockatiels depend on a variety of vitamins, minerals, and proteins for staying healthy. Adding abundant greens, shredded carrots and hard-boiled egg yolk provide the healthy food necessary for a long life period. Calcium is very important for breeding female cockatiels, in whose calcium stores can be lost over time by laying eggs. Give reproduction birds plenty of oyster shell grit and cuttlefish bones. Captive birds can also develop a nutritional A deficiency. Shredded carrots and cooked yams can help boost vitamin The levels.
Cockatiels are built for long haul flying; in the wild, they fly many miles daily looking for food and water. Pet cockatiels don’t have the space for this kind of extreme workout.
Safety Tips for Cockatiels
Cockatiels can live 20 years or more if given proper care. Practicing common sense and household safety can add years to your bird’s life. Never leave cockatiels unsupervised with small children or household pets. Inside nature, cockatiels are surface feeders. Pet cockatiels enjoy exploring floors but are easily stepped on and can become targets for dogs and cats when allowed to stick to the floor. Avoid putting your cockatiel in direct sunlight without providing a source of shade. Cockatiels enjoy being outdoors in their cages but require normal water and shade for avoiding heatstroke and dehydration. Your current bird is too hot if he’s panting and holds his wings a bit away from his body. If the bird seems unwell or is injured, take him to the vet immediately. Birds instinctively effort to hide illness, so if your bird seems sick, it’s time to see your vet.
