my big chicken.....

[Housemouse]

Well, I had to clean Homer's cage today, and he was out of pellets. So while I'm out I decide to buy him a new rope "comfy" perch, a really neat millet holder/dish with this cool seed guard to protect my floor from his millet shells, and a lovely little seed dish that looks like a shallow birds nest. So I fix the cage all up, and bring him over...he takes one look and freaks. He glides down under my kitchen table (it has 2 pedastal bases) and it takes me 20 minutes to get him out from under there. I didn't know cockatiels could run so fast. Of course it didn't help matters that I was almost hysterical laughing at him. So now he's locked in with the new "killer" things. I'll give him a bit. He's calmer now. If he doesn't adjust, I'll remove the perch.

Has anyone else had this problem?!?!?

[adey12]

well not with feeders but with toys yep. Its natural birds should be terrified of new objects since there prey animals.

When ever i get a new a toy i keep it away from the food so they dont starve themselve

[twohazy]

I am wondering if I don't have a really weird bird! Whenever i take Spike's cage out to clean it (once a week), I take everything out of the cage and use the garden hose to clean it. When I put the cage back together, I always relocate everything (to spice things up a bit), putting in new toys, moving food bowls, etc. and Spike doesn't seem bothered by it at all!

He wanders around the cage checking it out and once he finds his pellet dish, he's content. Is that normal for them NOT to be upset by things being changed around?

[Housemouse]

I'm not sure what the norm is, but Homer has never been good with change. He doesn't play with toys either. But I did make some progress. He now loves the adorable birds nest dish. It was a trip trying to get him near it though. I found that he just LOVES the breakfast cereal Kix, so I put 1 kix puff in the dish. It still took him about 5 minutes of looking, nibbling the dish, carefully putting his foot on and off of the dish before he stretched as far as he could to reach his beloved kix puff. Then I smashed a kix into his pellets, and once he had to actually dig in to get the kix, he realized that his pellets were there and that the dish wasn't gonna eat him. So all's well now, and he's happily eating his pellets out of that dish again. Just a note, that dish is NOT his main feeding dish. More like a treat dish. (so don't tell HIM that pellets aren't a treat ) I wouldn't have made such a change with him main dish. I'd be afraid that he would have starved himself. Here's a picture of his new dish

[emdh]

I love that dish-did you get it on-line or at a shop?
By the way-you mentioned a way to keep millet off the floor. I feed my guys zupreem natural and I swear that when they bite into the pellets, more ends up on the floor than in their bellies. Any suggestions?

[Celestial_Moon]

thats exactly what mine does emdh lol :haha

There is like tons of half eaten pellet bits under his cage so what I do is when I have to change the newspaper or the food and water, I just put him on the floor and he becomes this little birdy vaccuum cleaner. He eats all pellets that are on the floor

[Birdmad Girl]

:haha :haha :haha

That photo of the dish had me in stitches! It's the way his little head appears in the corner, staring straight at the camera, right at the front of the cage as if begging to be let out to escape theEVIL dish!

Sorry - but I couldn't resist this:

[Housemouse]

ROFL! That's too funny. Actually though, at that time he was more used to it. But he was at the bottom of his cage snacking on his seeds when I got out the camera. The ham that he is, he climbed up to sneak into the picture. That bird has way too much personality!:haha

Back to the dishes, the cute nest dish was a purchase from petsmart. The millet holder/seed guard is from a system of really neat products made by "firstprize pet products"

As you can see, the system has a seed "shield" that keeps the seeds off the floor. Now it doesn't help the cage floor, but that's no worry to me. I clean it out every day anyhow. It's the millet seeds on MY floor...usually just after I've swept and mopped and RIGHT before company arrives.

[Squawk and Howl]

yeah, i have a bird that wasn't scared of a toy IN his cage, until i took it out to introduce him to playing with it. then he hissed and ran away! weird! he sat right next to it when IN the cage!:haha