Our cockatiel Hannibal

[fugu99]

Before we got into the fish-keeping hobby, Tony and I got a cockatiel. Tony has had them most of his life, and the one we got was actually the baby of his old breeding pair, which he gave to a petstore. They pretty much gave us the baby free, though we still had to get him a cage and everything. After much debate he was named Hannibal, although sometimes we just call him Dr. He loves to sing to us, and has actually gotten into the fish hobby with us. He loves the fish so much I took one of his perches and screwed it onto the outside of his cage so he can sit near the glass of the tank and talk to the fish. We frequently catch him giving the fish 'kisses' or saying to them 'prettyboy' or 'hey buddy or 'whatchadoin'. He sings to them and half the time, cichlids being as curious as they are, the fish are as interested in him as he is in them. Hannibal can sing the Star Trek theme, hes currently working on 'The Final Countdown', and he wolf whistles. He likes towels, for some odd reason, and tends to sing to them and get incredibly excited. He also loves feet. He sings to, dances to, and kisses feet. He will even chat with them. He cant stand to be apart from us and gets upset when we leave the room, or the house. He likes to cuddle and Tony uses him as a 'birdie pillow' which is really just a bird hug in which he doesnt squish him at all. Hes so strange, if you put your hand and cup it around his head down to his neck he will sing into your hand. He will even lie still on his back in Tonys hand, hes that trusting of humans. Hes very friendly but he still isnt used to his flying harness. Its his nemesis XD.

[allycat]

TOO CUTE!!

...pics?

[Flutter]

That's sweet.

[fugu99]

Hmm! If only I knew how to post images on a forum. Ah ha! Attachment... lets see... okay I dont know how to reduce a pics size to 256 KB. sigh. help.

[sevenyearnight]

Upload the pics into your gallery, and then post with the [img] option. Looking forward to seeing him! I really liked the bit about the towel lol.

[jus85411]

i love cockatiels! i used to have a lutino and it was beautiful! a bright yellow head that the color seemed to cut off exactly at its neck line! and the white began. underside of her wings had some yellow, but not much. hand fed baby, i finished the last week of hand feeding and began the weening off formula. it was an awesome experience for that week and i look forward to trying to breed them later in life. my lutino was "sexed by the breeder via blood test by vet", which i dont doubt on the pet store's end as i was working there and saw the invoice with male/female for each bird and the color. well a year and a half into owning "him", "he" layed eggs lol. name went from Rex to Roxy i think the breeder just lied as mine wasnt the only one to surprise someone lol. the pet store stopped dealing with that breeder and started on a private local lady who came in all the time. she was an avid animal keeper from fish to horses and her own stable! i have had to stop myself from buying a cockatiel whenever i stop in a local pet store cause they always have babies! and younger ones from hatchlings-5/6 weeks old. i plan on getting one of the younger ones as soon as they are available for sale. not to start my hand in breeding, but just to have one again as i loved the one i had. cant wait to see pictures!

[allycat]

I would LOVE to keep a bird... but I think my cats might be too enthusiastic! Maybe when we can have a bird exclusive room. With tanks? I love imagining your bird talking to the fish! Snakes might make a bird nervous, might have to leave those out of the feng shui...

::dreaming of a greenhouse-viv::

My cats and rats are BFFFFFF (ok that's what the kittehs think)

[fugu99]

I posted the pics to my gallery but i still cant get them to post in a message. Check them there if you want! I also put up an image of some of our molly adolescents right after they were born. Cute... I wish I could post a video of Hannibal singing to the fish. Ill try to catch him on his perch for a picture next time.

Oh, by the way hes napping next to Tony right now grooming Tonys hair. Hes more attached to Tony than to me but its really cute.

[fugu99]

I forgot to mention, Hannibal doesnt always finish learning an entire song but he will sing all the parts of the songs hes learned together in one song, its ridiculous. He knows part of "The Flight of the Valkyries", the "Darth Vader march", that little tune when you say "neener, neener, neener..." and a buddy of ours tried to teach him Mozart. He also stands on one foot and puts the other next to his beak and sings to it, or gives it kisses, whatever. Cockatiels are seriously obsessed with feet. XD

[c333davis]

I checked out the pictures in your album. Pretty bird! He sounds like a fun companion!

My mom has a blue&gold macaw, and I never imagined that a bird could have such a distinct and lively personality.

Enjoy yours!

[sevenyearnight]

Grabbed one for you

[fugu99]

Thanks sevenyearnight! Thats our boy. Theres one other thing Id like to mention. The fish are actually Hannibals pets XD... He is so entertained by them we like to think that hes our pet, and the fish are his pets. They certainly keep him distracted... hes not used to the puffers yet though.

[jus85411]

hannibal is gorgeous! he looks like a cinnamon pied/lutino mix! still looks young too, how old is he? this thread is making me want a cockatiel even more! just thinking about all the stuff mine did that were cute/funny. i had an awesome cage that the door opened and the latch folded over to make a sturdy ledge for the bird to go on and i had a 2 ft wooden ladder for birds that i got for her so if she was out and wanted to go in the cage she could just climb the ladder. mine had a foot fetish as well and really liked ears. gave you kisses, but never learned to sing. i would always say pretty bird, her name and other little things over and over. the only time i ever really heard a peep out of her was when i left the room lol. almost lost her one time though :0 i was over a friends house and they had a patio door that the screen was closed on. my friends brother opened the screen door but didnt close it right away. wings werent really due for clipping(which i did myself) but it was just enough for her to glide and catch some wind. you could tell she didnt know what she was doing as she landed up in the closest tree, just looking down at me and my friend... left the tree and went to the back of their apartment complex on top of the back row of buildings... throwing little sticks around her was enough to scare her and she landed on a lower roof of the laundry room where i was able to scale the brick wall a few feet and throw a towel over her to trap her. worst day of my life lol but at least i got her back

[fugu99]

jus85411- Hahaha I understand the stress about losing the bird outside. We have to constantly be on the alert because we are in a small apartment, and whenever Tony goes outside Hannibal hunkers down and puts his wings out because he wants to go to. More than once Tony has been half trapped outside because Hannibal will get down on the floor and walk right up smack against the door and screech. Wing-trimming is a must. I never owned cockatiels, but I used to have parakeets when I was younger and we had a family lovebird and I did all the bird care. The real stresser is doing their nails though. Between getting bitten, and stressing them out, and them moving too much and nearly clipping them too short... augh. Best left to professionals. Fortunately if we cant do it the people at Animal Jungle can, they handle all their animals and have people who specialize in certain things. Poor Hannibal was so afraid though, the way he screeched was like we were abandoning him... Birds have an astonishing amount of personality, and cockatiels are particularly personable with humans. Hannibal was born July 17, 2009. So his second birthday is coming up! Hes still a big baby though. Although hes mostly grown out of napping with us and getting cuddles, he still wants to sometimes. He likes to have his neck scratched and he loves to take warm showers.

I can tell you why your bird wasnt really talkative that much, or much of a singer... its because it was a female. The males are very vocal, especially if you own them young like how we got Hannibal, he was 2 1/2 months old when we brought him home. You can talk to them and whistle to them and they will pick up just about everything, and also when you have them that young you can get them really used to being handled. Even though he is more Tonys bird, he is very friendly to other people and has times where he is cuddly with me as well. We believe that he has chosen Tony as his "parent" or possibly his "mate" and he lends particular attention to Tony at all times. Such as learning the sound the screen door makes when Tony comes home, and Tony always says "hey buddy" when he comes in the door, so now Hannibal does both those sounds in order. Sometimes the real problem is trying to get Hannibal to STOP singing. He can be very loud at times, and he gets moody. But when hes out of control he gets a 'time out' in the closet. Hannibal was the offspring of a cinnamon pied female (WooWoo) and a plain grey male (GusGus). Haha. Tony used to have a latino, her name was Napol. They can be very mean, latino cockatiels are naturally mean even when brought up handfed from a very young age. But it helps that you had them young because it definitely benefitted your bird to have a well-grounded nature. Oh, Im very impressed about that petstore, or vet, because hardly any bird handlers will sex birds. Generally you tell by their feathers when they get a little bit older. We werent entirely sure about Hannibal when we took him home, other than he had the yellow markings we were looking for. Females are generally solid grey, except for pied and latinos where it gets tricky. You have to look at the underside of their feathers at a certain age. Females will still have banded wing feathers (on the underside) and males will not. But Im not an expert on it, Tony used to breed and hes knowledgeable about it. Apparently his breeding pair (that he gave to the petstore) are siitting on two new eggs Remember that breeding pairs become aggressive. Once you establish a male and female as a pair for breeding, they will 99% of the time lose interest in humans and become aggressive and protective of their mate and nest. So if you have a loveable, singing bird that you are attached to, like ours, I dont recommend getting them a female companion. They consider you to be their flock or family, and arent necessarily lonely. Even though they may have been hand-raised and very well trained, they will become completely attached to their mate and wont let you near their cage or nest, and will bite or attack to defend it. They may also cease to sing and pay attention to you. Its a trade-off.

allycat- Im sorry to say you cant keep snakes and birds together. Theres something in snake feces that will kill birds. Its possible, but theyd have to have seperate rooms and youd have to be very careful, very sanitary... but I dont know, I dont recommend it. Thats why even though Id like a python, we will never get one. Maybe a small reptile though Garter snake... geckos...

[hadla]

ive had tiels for 11 years. had to put ricky down over the summer, she was at least 10 years old. the only one i have now is dory and shes about 5 and a little baby! the only bird i know who has never bitten anyone even while clipping her wings and nails. she gets defensive over her food bowls though and its funny if shes sitting next to one while i fill it up! i got my fiance started with tiels too and he has 4: pidgey, angelous, rukia, and squall. we call squall spider bird cause she is the only one who will walk upside down in the cage! its too funny! shes also the only one out of all our birds who likes swings so we call them her swings. pidgey is the self appointed leader, he seems to boss the other 3 around even though hes the smallest and crippled(two of his toes dont bend at all so he has a harder time getting around the cage compared to the others)! rukia is funny, too. she will sit on the corner of the cage with one foot on each wall and if youve ever played mario kart wii and heard the bats in the game, we swear they sound just like her! angelous is an interesting bird, it will be fun to see if he starts talking because hes copied dorys call. hes also a baby who vies with pidgey for kens attention. oh, pidgey is a whiteface regular gray with no yellow on him, rukia is white faced pearl, angelous is almost albino, his eyes are lightly tinted red, and squall is lutino(the only one with color out of his birds). dory is a regular gray with 2 or 3 little yellow spots on the back and side of her head that never go away. whats funny is that i got her at petco a few months after hurricane katrina so something good came out of that hurricane for me. i cant remember if she was a displaced bird from a petco in new orleans or not, lol, and the girl who let me hold her swore she was male (i think cause she wanted to buy her!)

ricky had laid eggs a few times but never seemed interested in them. oh one more thing, NEVER LET YOUR BIRD CHEW ON JUTE(also called packing twine)!!! i had used it in rickys toys almost all her life and in 2009, she ended up coughing up a big jumbled knot of it and later on a smaller one(after vomiting a few times and not knowing why, the vet took xrays but couldnt see it in them)