by Pajarita » Tue Aug 30, 2016 9:10 am
Welcome to the forum! Wolf already gave you great bird-safety ideas so I will go into the diet and cage.
Yes, he does need special food. At his age and although he looks like an adult, he is still a growing boy (you don't really know yet if it's a boy, right?). Seeds are fine for cockatiels but because they are very difficult to get to eat a good, balanced diet, I always recommend gloop and greens for breakfast and all day picking. My tiels loved the gloop and it was the only way I was sure they were eating veggies daily. They are not big on fruits... as a matter of fact, out of the possibly 60 or 70 cockatiels I've had, there were only two that ate apples (and that was it, just a few bites of apple and nothing else) but they do love greens so, if you give him the gloop (mine has corn, carrots, peas, chopped broccoli, hominy, sweet potatoes, butternut squash and chopped artichoke hearts - it also has chopped green beans but my cockatiels always left them) and a different green every day (all lettuces except iceberg, chicory, escarole, Chard, bok choy, nappa, all cabbages, celery, endive, watercress, kale, etc but no spinach) and some multivitamin/mineral supplement, he will do great. Now, as to the vitamin supplement, you have to be careful not to overdo it because too much is, sometimes, worse than too little when it comes to parrots - so, if he is eating all his veggies and greens, you should give him just one or two daily dosages a week.
The cage should be large enough for him to have plenty of space between the perches and toys. I don't know if this applies to you but most people tend to fill their cages with stuff, leaving little room for the bird to move (all they can do is step from one perch or toy to another and that's not good). Cockatiels are not big on playing with things but they do like to chew paper (try a rolled up catalog) when they are adults (I doubt he will do it now).
Aside from that, he needs to be kept at a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk and his protein intake needs to be reduced during the winter or he will end up hormonal all year round (tiels are extremely opportunistic breeders so one needs to be extra careful with them).
My last suggestion is that, if you don't already know, you wait until you can determine his gender and then get him a mate. Cockatiels are not really companion parrots, they are aviary and, although they are happy with people when they are young, once they become sexually active, they need a mate to be happy - it's the way nature made them.
