HELP????!!!!!! Cockatiel won't talk....?

Question

I have a 4 1/2 week old cockatiel and won't talk. I have spent more than hours, every day teaching him/her how to say hello. But he/she just won't talk!! Any help or advice??!!! Also, he/she is tamed and i don't know the s*x!!!

Answer 1

First of all, 4 1/2 weeks is very young.  Secondly, you can not force a bird to talk.  A bird picks up words of its own accord, you can rarely train it into them.  Also, some birds may never talk.  

If you want to know the s*x of your bird take it to the vet for dna testing.

Answer 2

First of all, it's way too young to expect anything like that just yet. Is it even weaned onto solid food yet?  That sounds awfully young for you to even have it- are you hand feeding?

Second of all, if it is a female, she is less likely to talk (though its not impossible).

Third of all, start it with something easier, like whistling.  I had a cockatiel that refused to talk for me but loved to whistle.  I started whistling the same tune over and over and after several weeks he started whistling it on his own, and went on to learn a few more songs.    

But he never would say any of the words I tried to teach him... HOWEVER, later I adopted a small parrot that already had quite an impressive vocabulary, and within a few months my cockatiel could say everything the parrot could say!  I guess I wasn't enough motivation :)

Edited to add:  what kind of a cockatiel is it?  (Color, markings etc).  If you give a good description we might be able to help guess the s*x.  Would you say the markings are bright, or more subdued?

Answer 3

A. You can't FORCE a bird to talk. NO bird is guaranteed to talk. It may NEVER talk. If that's why you got it, you're not a good bird owner.

B. It's still a BABY.

C. It doesn't MATTER what its gender is.

Answer 4

***cockatiels aren't likely to talk.

and another thing, **it's only a month old...most birds who do talk start talking at the age of a year or so.

and yes, there is NO garuntee for it to talk, no matter how much you teach them.

cockatiels have a short attention span, i have one, and it's about 8 years old..and it doesn't talk. BUT they are very capable of copying whistle tones.

just wait a couple years, and see how it goes, but it most liekley won't talk.

Answer 5

I'm sorry Danny but cockatiel are not well known to talk. There are some exception but mostly they are not the kind of parrots that talk.

Answer 6

It is 2 young for a start I have 20 different species of birds including parrots,finches,quail and cockatiels you must talk into the lump ontop of its beak not to much though about 1hour a day it takes alot of patience

Answer 7

don't teach it to whistle or it will never talk

Answer 8

Calm down, take a deep breath, etc. Ok, I have 3 parakeets. I know it's not quite the same, but here's what I know: male are more prone to speak. Teaching a bird to talk can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months. Some parakeets will never talk. It's easier to teach a bird when it's alone and has no mirrors in the cage. It is easier to teach a bird words with hard letters like t's, p's, & c's, so the traditional "hello" isn't that easy for a bird to learn. If your bird starts making weird sounds, you're getting close.