Cockatiel bites and hisses despite seemingly tame?

[BonBonBirb]

Just to make sure: What do you mean by the term "free feeding"?

EDIT: I found the term not on other pages but mentioned in the forum after all. I do not have a huge amount of seeds for her in her bowl, only what she needs for the day and is appropriate for her size.

[Wolf]

If you give her an amount of seed to feed her all day long from breakfast until dinner and then give her more seeds for dinner then you are free feeding her seeds as she is free to eat all the seeds that she chooses to eat. And that is almost the same as an all seed diet and will cause fatty liver disease. It would also explain why she is overweight and still wanting more food as it is not nutritionally balanced and deficient to her requirements.
Does this help you understand any better?

[BonBonBirb]

Ah alright, I understand it better now thanks for the further explanation!
Although it confuses me a little since I heard from many sources seeds should also be available due to their fast digestion and I mostly offer a low fat mix, only the seeds I give as treat could be higher in fat but she gets rather little of those. Her overweight was mainly due to the old seed mix which contained a lot of sunflower seeds in addition with her not taking any veggies and not daring to go on the scale.

[Pajarita]

But, my dear, 112 g is not overweight! Tiels weigh between 100 and 120 g, it's only when they go over the 120 that you can start considering them a bit overweight but it also has to do with muscle mass so young birds that fly around all the time and have a lot of muscle can weigh a bit more without actually been overweight and an old, more sedentary bird will need to weight on the lower side of the average. And both males and females bulk up for breeding and during molting so you can't really use a single figure as the perfect weight because it varies a lot. At her age (have you told us exactly how old she is?) and taking into consideration she flies around, I would say that she is actually a bit too skinny so, yes, I think she vocalizes so much because she's hungry. My tiels (old, handicapped and unable to fly) eat gloop with a leafy green for breakfast (they get fruit but don't eat it) and, for dinner, they get a heaping tablespoon of a good quality budgie mix so they are getting more food than your young, active one and they are not overweight.

It's not only the quantity of food, it's also the type and, yes, they should always have food but the food they should have there all the time needs to be the right kind (like gloop or chop or mash -my birds don't lie chop or mash so I feed gloop and the tiels LOVE it -as soon as I put the paper plate down on the bottom of their flight cage, they climb down in a hurry to eat it).

As to vocalizations, males are vocal only very occasionally during the year but very vocal during breeding season, especially if they have no mate - hens, on the other hand, are only vocal during breeding season and, again, only when they have no mates.

[Wolf]

I understand your confusion as it also took me a while to do enough research to understand that seeds in general are too high in protein and fat. The thing that you have been addressing the most is the actual fat content of the seeds, but protein is also a part of the problem due to the fact that protein is stored in the liver of the bird in the form of fat. Now, Cockatiels, can consume a larger amount of seed than many other species of parrots, but even they are not immune to the effects of too many seeds in their diet. Consider that in their natural environment seeds are not available all year long. So, even though they eat a lot of seed, their body is still bound by the constraints of what is found in nature, try as we might we cannot get around this because this is how they evolved.
I am not advocating that we must feed them exactly what they eat in their native environment, because we don't actually have that information available to us. But we can't discount totally how they evolved as that is written in their genetic code. This is also why I provided you with the link that I did. That link is to two medical texts for birds.

[BonBonBirb]

@Pajarita
But the weight depense on the species of cockatiel. In my area the small ones seem to be more common so every book I saw mentioned that 100g -80g is average.

[Wolf]

The World Parrot Trust also says 80 to 100 grams, but please bear in mind that they are averaging the weigh of hundreds or thousands of wild birds and as a general rule birds in the wild are going to be lighter than in captivity. They weigh the birds throughout the year so they are going to have periods where the birds are significantly heavier and periods where the birds are much lighter due to fluctuations in food supply that captive birds don't experience.
This is about as far as I can go with their actual weights because I don't have any cockatiels. I, however, do know that if the bird is begging for food that it is hungry. I know that there is an average weight that is considered healthy for adult male humans and that I could never weigh in that range as it left me too hungry and I never really ate all that much. Even today at age 60, my weight has remained the same as it has been for the past 44 years and yet, a single peanut butter and jelly sandwich lasts me for two days most of the time. All this means is that metabolism also plays an important role for each individuals weight. If it were my bird I would not be begging for food. My CAG asks for whatever it is that I am eating and mostly doesn't want it if I offer it, but she is just asking and not begging.

[BonBonBirb]

@Wolf The begging for whatever I am eating but not taking it is there too. But she also begs when her bowl is full with the daily amount of seeds and veggies and if I ignore her begging she will eventually eat those after a few minutes.

[Wolf]

I am hearing you and am not trying to say that you are either right or wrong, because I don't know that. If I did I would just up and say so. What I am doing is trying to learn more about your bird while trying to offer helpful hints based on the things that I have learned. My comments are based on the information that you provide right here. You are my eyes and ears into the world of your bird, which makes you my only source of information from your side.
I am thinking that perhaps the best way for you to work out whether your bird is under or overweight is your bird itself. Check the birds chest to find out how well you can feel the keel bone, you should be able to just feel it. if it is higher than the surrounding muscle then your bird is underweight and if you can't feel it then your bird is over weight.
You are right that the average weight is dependent upon the species of the bird, but that is just a guideline and not an absolute and you must always make allowances for individual birds and checking the keel bone will help you to do this. When the keel bone feels right weigh the bird to see what the bird weighs in at, this way you can begin to establish the baseline weight for your individual bird.
It is normal that your bird will want some of whatever you are eating as eating is a social event as well as an exercise in bonding, so don't just ignore it. S small piece of what you have, provided that it is safe for them will not make any real difference in the weight of your bird. It is also the very best tool at your disposal to get your bird to eat a healthy diet.
I hope this helps.

[Pajarita]

There is only one species of cockatiel and it doesn't even have subspecies but they do vary in size, same as people do. Wild birds tend to be smaller and leaner than pet birds so you can't really go by an average weight on wild birds. Here are two cockatiel-specific sites that cite a wider range of average weights: http://cockatiel.com/tiel101.html - http://aboutcockatiels.com/cockatiels-weight-guide/

In my personal experience, 106 grams is a low weight but it would be OK if it was a petite female (my LovieDovie is smaller than the others and she weights around that but she also had Giardia for years and years before she came to me and I was able to cure her for good -took me a couple a years, too) and it could be even lower if it was a bird with stunted growth (which, unfortunately, it's not rare in cockatiels due to people who have no business breeding them doing it without knowing enough about it).