Cockatiel bites and hisses despite seemingly tame?

[Wolf]

All of these hissing times that you just mentioned are taking place in her cage. What type of lighting does she get and when does she get up and go to bed?
I am starting to see that something else may be happening. If you would be kind enough to describe your birds average daily schedule starting with when she gets up when and what she is fed, how much out of cage time, how much interaction and physical contact she has with you and ending with when she goes to bed.
Most of the time if any of my birds express displeasure with what I am doing, I stop go do something else for a couple of minutes and then try again. Many times mine will say no to something and if I do this then the second or third time they usually say ok, lets do this. With hanging the toy it may be the toy that she is hissing at even though your hand is there.
Please understand that at this point and with limited information that some of this is speculation as to what is happening. The more information and the more detail included the better I/ we can answer your questions.

[Pajarita]

Hissing to a cockatiel means two different things: fear and anger. I am really surprised at her reactions because, in my personal opinion, no parrot is milder than a cockatiel. I don't train mine at all (one of them steps up but only because she had learned from before) but I can put my hand right in front of their faces and they would not even blink so, if you ask me, she fears you and doesn't trust you at all. Now, don't take what I am going to say the wrong way because I am not accusing you of doing it but, in my personal experience, her behavior is consistent with that of a bird that is a single one and has only interaction with a human who is not providing the right kind of company and, most likely, used flooding techniques to train. This bird is not only not bonded to you, she doesn't trust or even like you - and that's highly unusual in a cockatiel!

If you want a good relationship with her, stop your training immediately and concentrate on just spoiling her for a while. You need to change her opinion of you... and giving her a companion of her own species would help, too. And don't forget to give her a good diet and keep her at a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk or she could become a chronic layer and end up eggbound and dead.

[BonBonBirb]

All of these hissing times that you just mentioned are taking place in her cage. What type of lighting does she get and when does she get up and go to bed?
I am starting to see that something else may be happening. If you would be kind enough to describe your birds average daily schedule starting with when she gets up when and what she is fed, how much out of cage time, how much interaction and physical contact she has with you and ending with when she goes to bed.
.

Yes but it also happens outside although those times I would actually associate with fear since she doesn't seem to feel quite comfortable outside yet and rather unsure. She often does not try to go outside by herself as I mentioned in the first post. When she does, it often seems more like an accident and she ends up sitting in a higher place like on a wardrobe cheeping the whole time but not really moving from her place for quite a while. Although the last time it happened she seemed to move a lot more and even flew to places closer to me. I leave the cage open pretty much all the time I am home meaning before and after university.
Concerning the schedule: I usually wake up around 8 am and remove the cover's from her cage, saying the usual good morning phrase to her every time I do. After that I let some fresh air for a few minutes and then give her food and fresh water (Food usually consist of a seed mix that was recommended to me by many other bird owners and doesn't contain and sunflower seeds. She also gets some different fruits and vegetables like . After the morning preparations are all done I leave the cage open and she usually already jumps out on the platform (=cage door) and calls me , usually to give her millet since I always give her some for stepping up and such. She always seems rather enthusiastic about it and flies to me without hesitation. I don't really do many other kinds of training yet, only simple ones like the step up command and targeting. When I get home I usually greet her again and do the training whenever she calls since that is when she is usually feeling like it which is like 2-4 times a day. For the remaining day I talk to her occasionally while sitting on the other side of the room and also whistle to her quite a lot (she seems to really like it since she puffs up her cheeks and grinds her beak when I do) , every other day I will also play different music to her or offer her a small toy like a piece of colored non-toxic wood which she loves.
For the night I cover her cage around 8pm (+ let some fresh air in again), before she usually wants to get some more millet one last time and then she gets ready for sleep doing her beak grinding.

I also noticed she does the "bat bird" quite often. Could she just be very territorial?

[liz]

Myrtle was a mess when I got her. She was skinny, dirty and scared of everything. Her wings were clipped so she had no confidence, only fear. She mostly stayed on top of her cage at face level and did not back up when I went to talk to her. Sometimes she would jump off the top of her cage to test her wings and hit the floor. I would say Poor Baby but that is all I could do since she did not want touched. Instead she would walk over and climb up me to my shoulder and I would walk her back to the cage.
She was bonded to me because I was all she had. She was still very scared and I did not touch.

I have 9 cockatiels now. I did not mean to but they needed to escape where they were. Maggie was a breeder bird. Cagney & Lacy were passes around so many times that the man didn't even know their names. Lacy has missing toes. Lola's mom could not take care of her anymore. She has missing feathers in her right wing. Flutter and Phoenix came without names and in two little cardboard boxes. Phoenix has been mutilated. None of them bite because I don't push them. In the cage I keep the back of my hand toward them. Out of the cage I only step them up after they are tired and on the floor.
Cockatiels have to be the sweetest of all parrots.

[Wolf]

I think that you should try when you come home and she call to you, go and get her and walk about with her on you while talking to her. start with about ten to fifteen minutes with her on you if she will stay and work on increasing the time on you to about an hour. Work on building her trust in you with her on you, the only places that you should ever pet a bird is the head, beak and neck, so work on getting her to let you pet her head and neck. Go slow and don't force it, if she ducks you trying that is alright just keep talking to her and try again in a few minutes. Don't forget to offer an occasional treat to her during this process. It appears that you focused on training but not on bonding. This is not an uncommon mistake, So you need to back up and earn her trust now. If this way doesn't work then you will need to start all over from step one.

[BonBonBirb]

I think that you should try when you come home and she call to you, go and get her and walk about with her on you while talking to her. start with about ten to fifteen minutes with her on you if she will stay and work on increasing the time on you to about an hour. Work on building her trust in you with her on you, the only places that you should ever pet a bird is the head, beak and neck, so work on getting her to let you pet her head and neck. Go slow and don't force it, if she ducks you trying that is alright just keep talking to her and try again in a few minutes. Don't forget to offer an occasional treat to her during this process. It appears that you focused on training but not on bonding. This is not an uncommon mistake, So you need to back up and earn her trust now. If this way doesn't work then you will need to start all over from step one.

Alright! Thank you very much for your help! I had tried before to keep her on my hand longer but she usually wants to go back(she makes a certain motion when she wants to go back). I will try how it works the next few days.
Is there any kind of link or post you could recommend for more methods of bonding with the bird? (Not that I don't want to try the first method I would just like to read up on it since I seemed to have missed something.)

[Matt Alyk]

Probably doesn't want to be touched, or doesn't quite trust you to touch yet. I don't have a parrot, and won't for the next few years, so my advice isn't too credible. I'll give what I have to offer though. Is he target trained? If so, try training him to interact with your hand/finger by using the target stick. When not acting aggressive towards your hand, reward with a treat. Keep this up for awhile, and it will probably help. I did this with Lilly and it greatly reduced biting, I also never touched her when she didn't want to be touched.

[liz]

Matt, you made great progress with Lilly. That counts.

[Wolf]

Here is a link to Michael's way;
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227
and also Michael's;
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3637

I hope that these will help you.

[BonBonBirb]

Just a little update.

I read the links and things are going really well this week! She started to fly around a lot less fearful this week and came to my working desk I usually sit on and found the perch I had set up. She seems to really like sitting there, she barely wants to go back anymore.
She also became less fearful towards me and sat on my hand very relaxed about 20 minutes. She also isn't bothered by my hand that much anymore, often not even when I have to push her away from things she shouldn't touch, she sometimes also jumps onto it so that's great progress from how it was before! Thank you very much for your advice!
Although she still doesn't like me touching her head, she won't bite anymore but duck and I'll leave her be. Now I'm just wondering how long it usually takes for parent-raised cockatiels to accept physical interaction of that kind?