Sunny helping herself

I adopted Sunny from an elderly lady 3 months ago that needed to rehome her because of the ladies health.
Sunny was very loved & spoiled and I am sure missed her lady.
It has taken until last week for Sunny to finally trust me & my 6 yr old daughter.
We bribed her w/ millet fed through the cage as she hissed at us
offered her hard cuban crackers as she tried to bite us...then..slowly....she came around
she stopped hissing when I'd sit by her cage talking
and last week she started gently taking tiny seeds from my fingers without any aggression.
then 3 days ago she just walked out of her cage LOL
jumped up on my knee and climbed up on my head.
we let her out every day now & my little girl LOVES to feed her seeds.

Sunny is beautiful! I'm so jealous
Thanks for sharing!

Aww, Sunny is a beautiful tiel! Congratulations on the progress.

Sunny is beautiful! I have a cinnamon tiel too. What diet do you feed your tiel?

She is lovely.

thank you
I'm still learning with her diet. She is a bit too fat at the moment and I'm afraid its from me bribing her with the millet. I have cut back on that. I have several different types of very good quality cockatiel seeds which I've mixed together so she wont' have too much of the sunflower seeds.
Also, I give her different fruits and veggies alittle each day. She really isnt that fond of them because her previous owner only gave her seeds so I keep trying to find things she will try.
I gave her some mango and her expression was priceless lol
she will 'lick' the fruits and then shake her head all around.
she does like alittle cooked potatoes sometimes and boiled eggs but its just slow going w/ her.
She also likes to snack on these very hard cuban crackers I have. That was another bribe but she doesnt actually 'eat' them much, just likes to break them apart.

My cockatiels do not like wet foods so I usually give them leafy greens, broccoli, and shredded carrots. They love them! Millet is actually a low fat seed which makes it a great seed treat for cockatiels. It wouldn't be the cause of her being overweight. I would recommend taking sunflower seeds out of her diet and you could try adding organic pellets to her diet (like Roudybush and Harrisons). Pellets are recommended by vets. They help with cutting fat out of the diet and help with feather quality and overall health.

Ana,you should seriously create a thread on cockatiel's diet.Its like you know everything!

I will later. This is my 7th year owning birds and I do lots of research! I love helping people and their birds.

thank you, You really should write something like that about diet. I am such a newbie at all of this and could use all the help I can get. I didnt even know about pellets until I was reading some stuff online yesterday and now your comment as well!
I will def. get some and offer them. I did not realize how great they are at providing so much that they need in their diet. I always picked stuff that looked good. lol
and yes, you are right, too many sunflower seeds.
I am glad millet is ok because I just got 5lbs of it a few days ago. LOL and all the birds love the millet!
thank you again.

You're welcome! Glad I could help!
I have the same playstand you do! The green "sport" one by Sunny's cage in the pics.

lol no one will even try that play station! my daughter insisted we get it a few weeks ago and even the lovebird wont get on it. they just hesitantly peck at it. lol wont stand on it or anything. :/ but..we thought it was cute. lol

Vinita you are doing great with Sunny.
Check out Cockatiel Cottage, you will find a lot of things on there.

Pellets should only be about 25% of total diet for small birds. I am biased and do not feed pellets, as I feel a good diet is a varied mix of all things good.
As O/P has said Tiels tend to not like wet foods such as fruit. but in saying that slices of apple are sometimes used while transporting Tiels. This gives them some form of water for the journey.
With diff foods it cam come down to persistence and the way you present it.
Here are a few Vegies you could try.
Any dark leaf greens. Kale Silverbeet Broccoli Brussel Sprouts. These must be fresh not from the vegie shop. Peas Sweetcorn Carrots.
My No1 Fav is Mung Beans, which I sprout for them, they love these and a few other seeds sprouted. Mung Beans are a top complete food sitting at 72% on the total food scale. But do need to be freshly sprouted and they peak when the tails are just 1/2in long.
Garden weeds. Dandelion Milk Thistle Chick weed (not correct name sorry) any grass in seed and I also give trees tops mostly when in flower. Bottlebrush Paperbark Gum Manuka Kanuka Pururi Agonis
And I have mineral blocks and Cuttlebone available.
If I need to boost anything I make up nuggets (like birdy bread) and put added things in there.
Seeds. well not much to say here! Added Flax seed, but just a good Cockatiel seed mix. Millet.
Just a few ideas for you.

those are great ideas! thank you!! I actually tried the Dandelion yesterday and she tried some. My lovebird loved it and dipped hers in her bird bath first. lol Also, what about lettuce and cabbage? I put a few leaves in their cages and hung them down from the cage. The cockatiels and lovebird all seemed to have a blast shredding them. lol Sunny did seem to like it alot. She actualy ate some. I don't think it would have much nutrients in it but she probably enjoyed the water from it.

I love the idea of the bean sprouts you mentioned. I've seen other peoples blogs before about growing fresh sprouts for the birds. I def. will do that as well. I want her to have fresh foods as much as possible and she gets excited with new stuff.

Thank you.

I think cabbage is Ok?
Lettuce Romain I think is the best as you say not much in Lettuce.

I should of pointed out warnings!
Make sure there are no chemicals or urban pollution on any thing from the outside.

I will post else where re sprouting of seeds. Showing a very simple way to just sprout enough for a day or two.
There is a lot of hype that puts some off of trying this, but simple checks will ensure your not going to hurt your birds.