Even when cockatiel owners take all the precautions, their birds can still have night frights. Night frights happen when a bird wakes up at night and either bumps into something or sees something that scares it. The bird begins thrashing around the cage. This is dangerous to the bird and any of his or her cage mates. Once the night fright has begun, the owner only has a small window of time to stop the thrashing and attend to the bird. Cockatiels can easily break blood feathers and bleed out.
Instructions
1. Turn on the light. As soon as you hear the flailing and screeching, get to the cage as quickly as possible. Turn on the light and any additional lights in the room.
2. Remove the bird from the cage. Just sticking your hand in the cage while the bird is flailing will only make things worse. Wait for it to stop flailing, and then stick your hand in the cage. If your bird is tame, it may just step up as usual, but even tame birds can still be quite frightened. If you cockatiel will not step up, use a towel to gently pull the bird from the cage.
3. Check the cockatiel for injuries. Many times cockatiels scrape their wings or break a blood feather while flailing about. If your cockatiel is bleeding, you will need to stop it quickly. Cockatiels can bleed out quite easily. Use Kwik Stop or flour (yes baking flour) on a wet q-tip to stop the bleeding. You may always want to keep Kwik Stop or flour on hand near the cages for these emergencies.
4. Pull the broken blood feather. If the cockatiel has broken a blood feather, you will need to pull it out. Leaving the blood feather unattended could result in it bleeding again. Get a pair of tweezers. Extend the bird’s wing and find out where the broken feather enters the skin. There should be a little bump where the feather ends. You will use one hand to pinch just under that bump and push to the quill forward, and the other hand to pull the feather with the tweezers. Make sure you pull the whole feather out. Apply more Kwik Stop or Flour to stop any additional bleeding. If the bleeding does not stop, take the bird to an emergency vet.
5. Check on cage mates and friends, iff the cockatiel has cage mates or you have multiple cages. Check on the other birds. Your cockatiel may have accidentally hurt its cage mate in the process. Also night frights can be chain reactions. One bird freaks out, causing other birds to freak out as well. Make sure no one else is injured. If they are, treat their injuries.
6. Calm down the cockatiel. Once you have attended to his or her injuries, it is time to calm the bird down. Make sure it is completely calm and ready to go back to bed before you put it in the cage. Putting the bird back in while it is still frazzled, will probably just lead to another night fright. Once you are sure your cockatiel is read to go back to bed, gently put it back in the cage.
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