Lisa Shea Forums Parakeets Non-Budgie Pets and Animals Overweight 'Tiel?

Hey guys,

It's been a while since I've posted...

Anyways, I still have Peaches my cockatiel (hmmm...going on 9 months now) and she's doing great being her little Peachy self. And then of course I still have my lovely Skittles, the parakeet, who will have been with me for three years on October 17. And if anyone remembers about me posting about the poodle I had found back in January, yes we ended up keeping him and he is just the sweetest thing ever. Heh.

But, onto the subject of this post. Let me start by saying that Peaches never grew back her feathers on her forehead or where her "peaches" (orange patches) are, but she does look better. I've just come to the conclusion that they'll never grow back and that maybe it was genetics or something...

I think Peaches is overweight, though. I'll try to get a picture for y'all to see that is recent. Anywho, she eats often, I'll admit, but it's just her pellets or fruits/veggies that we give her. She rarely if ever, gets seed or millet. But, when she's in her cage she is definitely not very active. She usually sits on her one of her perches for a long while. The equivelent of her "playing" with toys is chewing on them, which is fine since I got some toys for her that are shreddable. She just isn't that active of a bird. I haven't been taking her out like I should be (she's out now), but I'm trying to get into the habit. Whenever I take her out, I let her sit on Skittles's play gym that he never even liked (he likes our blinds better...go figure).

Okay, so finally, to the question. How can I get her to be more active and "exercise"?

personal i say to get your tiel active you should play with it........ like when you take it out of the cage let take something it likes to chrew on with it and like tease it with that so you can at least get the bird moving some...... or like find a treat that it really likes and put it someplace it has to go get it........ or something like that! i'm not sure i just have 3 keets... they're all very active!

I have no clue...xD I might say give her more calcium, but then I would sound stupid if it were something else. I am taking a wide variaty of notes on teils, so I DON'T sound stupid when I talk about them. So far I have only gotten to Diet. (Pretty long list, Eh?) But maybe just let her out every day. You might cut down on her food intake. Like narrow her pellet amount each day to 1/4 of a cup. I am doing that to my birdies. I swear, pretty bird is overweight, so I HAD to reduct her pay in seeds for beeing so gosh darn cute xD

Are you leaving her food dishes in 24/7? Make sure the portions are correct for her daily intake.

Does she have her flight feathers? Will she fly with Skittles?

We now have 3 tiels, and even though 2 are clipped, they can still fly pretty well. They prefer to walk on top of the cages, but once the parakeets take flight, they all get going. Even if you encourage them to fly back and forth between the two cages. Maybe put some fresh veggies on top the opposite cage? Just a thought!

Nope, we have her clipped, and I don't think she knows she can fly. She has hopped down and flapped her wings before, but she just falls to the ground.

I do leave food in there all the time, so I'm trying to not fill up the bowl all the way like we sometimes do (she eats pellets).

If she can't fly, does anyone have any exercies that might get her burning some calories?

Thanks all for the suggestions!

Chase her. No really, not in a scary way but put her down and lie almost on the floor so your at the same-ish level (not scary big) and kinda chase her with toys or something with" i'm gonna getcha" or "come grab your chewy whatever," that maybe too scary for teils i don't know but they seem braver than keets, but i think you know what i mean by teasing not scaring. Can she perch hop like if you hold 2 and say jump you can make like a ferris wheel ride she might like i did with Coco when she was still stepping up. I start down low and have her jump up ti the second perch then i move the free one (just like stepups) and then when i get up high i say weeeeeeeeee and swoop her round like a ferriswheel back to the starting position and i do my best to actually make a circle.Or can they use those hamster wheel like on the outside even if she's too big to go in she may like to roll around a wiffle ball. Okay I have no idea. Sorry. My keet and previous keet had 2 full feeders all day all night and both where runty little things so i don't know. Just thinking out loud.