Everything you ever wanted to know about talking cockatiels
Talking cockatiels are native to Australia, and they are very sociable creatures. This is probably why it’s so easy to teach a cockatiel to talk. The cockatiel is actually small parrot, and it averages about a foot and a half in height. Cockatiels are very light creatures, weighing about three to four ounces on average.
Teaching your cockatiel takes a lot of time and effort, but it’s really rather simple. However, just keep in mind that one you have talking cockatiels, it might be hard to get them to be quiet! You also should not purchase a talking cockatiel just because there’s a chance that it will talk. In many cases, the bird’s ability to talk may be quite limited, so you don’t want to be disappointed when the cockatiel only learns rudimentary language skills.
The first thing you should do if you want talking cockatiels is to focus on interaction. You may have heard that some pet owners play tapes with repeated phrases to help their cockatiels learn how to talk, but the problem with this method is that cockatiels get bored very easily. They usually only learn a few words if you use this method. Cockatiels are very intelligent creatures, so you’ve got to make talking interesting to them if you want them to really learn how to talk well.
You also may want to consider letting your talking cockatiels out of their cage sometimes. Birds that are simply kept in a cage all the time will usually resort to bird calls instead of human-sounding speech. You should also spend plenty of time in the actual teaching of your talking cockatiels. This involves a number of different activities that will get the bird interested enough in the sound to try talking. For example, cockatiels love to look at themselves in the mirror, so you might try taking your talking cockatiels to a mirror and then repeating phrases that have something to do with the birds.
Another method of teaching cockatiels to talk seems a bit strange, but it can be rather fun. Try making a place for your cockatiel at the dinner table, and then try to engage the bird in conversation. Ask if the food is yummy and make the bird feel like part of the family. The more you talk to the bird during activities, the more interested the bird becomes in engaging in communication. Just keep practicing speech with the cockatiel, and it will pick up more and more words and phrases.
The best candidate for talking cockatiels is a male hand-fed baby cockatiel. Like adult humans, adult cockatiels have a more difficult time learning language. A cockatiel that has just been weaned is more likely to pick up human behaviors of all kinds, including speech, and male cockatiels have better voice chips due to their unique mating calls.
Talking cockatiels do certainly add a bit of fun to any household, and your children will love trying to teach a bird how to talk.