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I'm a new cockatiel owner - my bird found me outside, and no one claimed her. She and I have bonded well, and aside from being a little hand shy, she seems pretty happy and healthy.

I have a couple questions about her behavior around bedtime.

Around bed time, she climbs around the perimeter of her cage frantically, stopping occasionally and moving her head back and forth as if to scope out the room and what's around her. She eventually settles down next to her toy on the perch where she likes to sleep. She also shrieks or squawks. while she's doing this. Sometimes she settles only for a second, and then she's back climbing along the cage. She'll do this multiple times in a real frantic way. It really seems obsessive. She calms down sooner if I sit directly behind her or beside her and wait for her to get sleepy. Sometimes when I cover her she'll stop, but sometimes, no - it takes her a while to calm down.

Anyone see this kind of behavior? Any suggestions on how to help her?

I do give her peace and quiet once she's down, and sometimes I can move her into a dark, quiet bedroom where she wont' be disturbed at all (it still takes a while to settle her down). She gets plenty of sleep - most of the time at least 12 hours a night.

The other issue I have, which is related, is that I went away for a few days last weekend and when I got back, she seemed to have adjusted her bedtime hour an hour and a half earlier. So she gets really cranky now around 5:30 p.m.! How do I shift her into something more suitable to my schedule?

thanks!
Karen

Hi Karen - welcome! The way I put my tiel to our schedule was to get a smaller cage fore her "bed". She wasn't getting a full 12 hours sleep due to the TV being on most of the night and her cage was close to it. I bought a cage for a budgie, put it in a spare bedroom, and cover her. There is someone in our house 24/7, so we were able to adjust the sleep schedule to ours quite easily.

I know there are members here who would not be happy about our decision but it works for us. The birds schedule is roughly midnight to noon. Our first bird passed away about 1 1/2 years ago, she didn't seem to have an issue with our schedule. I think it's because she wanted to be with her flock, and just like a child it was a fight almost every night to get her to bed!! We do the same thing with our new tiel Dino, and he is no different about bedtime then Luna - They both get cranky at bedtime and fight about going to bed!

Jo

Thanks, Jo - great idea, having a sleeping cage in a quiet area of the house. I'm glad to hear my bird isn't the only one who is cranky about bedtime - but in her case, she doesn't mind going, she just wants it quiet!

Mine would do the same. She had pretty regular bed time but if she was ready to go and I was slow about it, she would carry on a bit. Her cage was on a wheeled stand so she got wheeled into a spare bedroom for sleeping. We had to obey the proper ritual though. She rode on my shoulder and we had to stop at a picture in the hall on the way so she could look at it for a few seconds before proceeding to "her" room. Once in a while I would forget to stop and she made it very clear that something was wrong! And I know a lot of people don't advise covering tiels, but she was used to it and would not settle in her sleeping spot until she made sure that the covers were adjusted just right. Kind of like dealing with a toddler. . .

My single female does the same thing! I've had her for about 4 years, and for the last 2 years or so, I let her out of her cage at around 7:30 am and put her back in around 8:00 pm ... she has free reign in the house for those hours.

I'll literally say, "Time to go home" and she'll either react like a child by flying around avoiding me, or will willingly get on my finger and I'll place her in the cage. A few minutes later, she'll start climbing over the inside top of the cage, down the walls, hang upside down with her wings spread out, squawk whistle and be a general pain ( not very grateful for being out all day, is it?) But she's only been doing this climbing in the last couple months ... but she'll settle down and when she's ready to sleep, she'll bang her beak, repeatedly, on her plastic perch / mirror combo. To me, that's her signal that she wants her cover on, it's getting dark and The Sandman is visiting her.

I think her climbing around the inside of the cage is just a way she communicates that she doesn't want to be by herself. I have sympathized with this behaviour a couple times, let her out to see what she did and she'll just fly to a window sill and ... sit there. I thought she might have some other place to go, or someone else to see, but nope, she just didn't want to be in the cage.

Hope this helps reassure you ...
Pete

I've enjoyed these responses, in a twisted sorta way. We're very willing to be trained by these 100 gram creatures, aren't we?

I'm reminded of overtired children protesting bedtime, but I'm childless, so maybe my sense of how kids protest bedtime is skewed. More seriously, pacing is a behavior frequently noted by researchers working with captive birds who've suffered severe deprivation. Of course, it's noted in most animals -- human too -- who are imprisoned in small spaces. Pete, it was your description that brought that thought to mind. I wonder if your girl's long hours of flying freedom don't make her more resentful of being caged rather than less.

Two of my birds have shown behavior that seems similar to what you've described, Karen, both rehomed parrots. Both calmed somewhat pretty quickly. The first was the harder, an Alexandrine parrot just 18 months old, who'd been "benignly ignored." Meaning, no one treated her unkindly at all, but the family was very busy and away from home most all the time. The bird spent most of her time alone with a well-behaved dog. Her pacing was what I called "running patterns." She'd run a course along her playtop that was fairly complicated, dipping under some things, over others, around still more, and crying forlornly all the while. For maybe 20 minutes she'd follow that same precise course, despite gentle efforts I made to comfort or distract her. The next day, her pattern would be different in its details, but she'd not vary, copying each step as she circled and cried. It was very upsetting to see her this way. No one I consulted then had any advice other than being kind, trustworthy, trying to built a bond to comfort her. After 6 months, she rather abruptly stopped the behavior and her crying, and we've been great pals for a dozen years now. Dr Scott Echols speaks of this behavior as sadly characteristic of distressed captive birds. He strongly encourages foraging for food as a way to avoid boredom: http://www.amazon.com/CAPTIVE-FORAGING- ... B000NPKEIK

My second bird to do this seems much more similar to your bird, Karen. She's an African grey who came to me at age 3, flying from the west coast to east coast and being quite panicked by that awful experience. I quarantined Zeta in my bedroom and spent a fair bit of time with her, hoping to comfort her. She arrived after 10pm, so bedtime was immediate, but the next day I was alarmed when she suddenly got very actively distressed at about 6:15. This was March, so the sun was a fireball dipping lower out windows she was facing. Friends assured me it had to be the sun upsetting her. I called "home" and was told she normally was bedded before sunset, hours earlier than my flock. So, I began feeding her dinner at 4pm and tucking her into bed by 6 -- shades closed and the cover she was used to carefully positioned to block her view of the windows. As her life here became weeks and then months, and the season's changes had the sun setting later, I gradually fed and bedded her later. Three years later, Zeta's still one of the first I put to bed, and she wakes me each morning, but her bedtime is hours later than it was, thank goodness! Tho I know little about her personality prior to rehoming, I suspect she was always a shy, sensitive grey, who was horribly frightened by the long, cross-country flight. That trauma had her anxious for awhile. She's still easily frightened.

I recommend the same gradual process of lengthening your girl's days. As I deliver Zeta to her sleep cage, she beak bops the glass of a certain picture in the hallway LOL and tiger-growls at the same place each evening. I give her a few seconds to settle while I close window shades and turn on her nightlight, talking calmly all the while. Then I rub her beak through the cagebars a few times and tell her I'm gonna turn her light off as I move to it. She's still sleeping in my bedroom, so I tell her several times that I'll see her soon, to sleep tight. Unless she flutters VERY anxiously, I pretend not to notice her distressed body language. But I call back to her reassuringly as I walk back downstairs, telling her again that I'll see her soon. I leave the bathroom light on until I come to bed, so she's got more than just the nightlight as she falls asleep.

None of my other many birds are like Zeta, so I'm learning as we get to know each other better. I hope your girl's adjustment is much quicker.

Thank you all for taking the time to write such thoughtful responses! I love the descriptions of the bedtime rituals - stopping to look at or beak-bop a certain picture - you're right - they do have us trained. That bird-human connection, too, is pretty cool. I had no idea what joys I was in for when I decided to take Harriet home. I continue to marvel at how much personality my little (she's petite by cockatiel standards, my vet says, but healthy) Harriet is and how she tries to communicate her wishes and concerns.

It's helpful to know that others have seen similar behaviors. Pete, my bird is out of her cage a lot (at least four or five hours each day), but I do get the sense that she doesn't want to be out at night - she always ends up on her sleeping perch in between her frantic climbing, although often looking over her shoulder. A friend of mine calls her behavior "looking for snakes," and sometimes I wonder if she is scoping for predators.

I'm not sure about the severe deprivation theory, Bluebird - although I'm sure it is the case in many birds, Harriet gets an awful lot of stimulation and has a lot of freedom, yet when she is in her cage, she seems content and active, except at bedtime . But perhaps in her earlier life - she flew up to me in a nature sanctuary, so I have no idea of her past - she had some trauma or deprivation. That would also explain why she's so hand shy.

And I agree, goodgirl , they are like toddlers. When Harriet first adopted me, I kept her out of her cage a few times well into the evening, and that was a huge mistake - she would get overtired and refuse to go back to her cage. The first time that happened I wound up sleeping in the living room while she roosted on a picture frame!

Again, thanks, all. Today bedtime was a little later - 6:30 - so maybe there's hope for me and Harriet syncing our schedules.

You've gotten some great responses, and I do agree that these tiny creatures do have us trained!

I have seen my tiels do this same behavior when they are kept up too late, and don't want to go to sleep because there is something interesting going on.

If you think that she is looking for predators, you can cover 3/4 of the cage with a light sheet, this will make her feel more secure.