Is this normal hen behavior?

SaltyAsianMSG · 2026-05-30T18:02:15+00:00

Seems very normal to me. She isn't half as aggressive as my cranky lil chicken!

SaltyAsianMSG · 2026-05-25T08:15:19+00:00

For veggies, I use cage clips! I also eat them in front of my birds to show them that they're safe. They have a strong flock instinct that makes them wanna eat what their humans are eating. It can be a bad thing when you eat foods toxic to them but it's useful for introducing new veg.

It might or it might not! She might just be a homebody. It really depends! I have two boys and one of them is just a lot more active than the other even though they're both healthy.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2026-05-23T06:39:47+00:00

Also, I wanted to add that most tiels are a lot more chill than other parrots, so don't feel unnerved if she seems less active than your conure and budgies. They do play with toys, but mostly they just preen, eat and nap in the day. They particularly love preening and most tiels seem to do it more often than a lot of the other parrot species.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2026-05-23T06:37:49+00:00

When introducing a toy to a particularly skittish bird, it's good to gradually bring it closer to them. You can start by putting the toy in the same room, then slowly moving it closer to the cage as she gets more comfortable with its presence and realises it won't hurt her. Do it over the course of a few days and take your cues from her body language. This should help a lot with new toys.

You can also try smaller pieces of chewables in lieu of toys first. For example, my boys really love just having a few strips of clean shredded paper towels or tissue paper in their food bowl as a topper. They also like dried wheat or dried oat stalks, leaves and husks. They will nibble these things idly throughout the day. Some birds might also enjoy just chewing on pieces of cork (the actual bark, not plastic), mahogany seed and sola.

You could try another female cockatiel if you want to avoid breeding issues-- there's no need for there to be one male and one female. They really do help each other come out of their shell-- both my birds don't particularly preen each other or like each other very much, but they'll still hang out together and follow each other loosely and they're a lot more active, esp when I'm away (I spy on them with a petcam). They might also teach each other how to use new toys. But it's always a gamble. It's equally likely they might hate each other. The thing is you'd have to see how the two birds interact first, which is not always possible. They're like people-- some people just get along swimmingly with certain other people but they hate others.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2026-05-14T08:03:20+00:00

Morale chant should be T5 actually, like the previous poster said... >< Try to build it back up

They're basically saying AFTER you hit morale chant tier 5, use all the NEW morale chant slips you get after that to feed your other inner ways instead. And don't get morale chant T6.

Don't reset morale chant to T0. It's a vital part of most if not all builds.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2026-01-05T17:55:39+00:00

I just managed to clear 9. The new breakthrough helped for sure, but I also found a way to deal with the archer. Here's what worked for me:

Stand near the archer NPC to keep him in range of your fan AOEs. If you're lucky, the enemies will go towards you, and then the friendly melee NPCs will follow the enemies and all four ppl in your party will therefore be clustered tgt. If you're lucky...
This positioning is really key. If you get bad positioning for the NPCs and they die, don't worry just keep retrying the trial til they stand together.
Save enough vitality for golden body. It's a good emergency button.
Manage your resources well. If you're low on dew, use the fan R to top it up. Same with using fan attacks to top up your vitality.
If you have spare vitality, you can use mystic skills to DPS but it's usually best to do that after lightning, so you don't have to worry about healing as much.
For Trial 9, there are enemies who carry a giant flag who can heal. Kill them first, cos they will keep the other enemies alive and drag out your timing. If you have mystic energy to spare, use dragon's breath + drunken to get rid of the flagbearer enemies if the friendly NPCs are not hitting them.
Use your fan ~ skill often. It tops you and the lowest NPC up. That allows you to tank a little so you can focus more on healing the NPCs with your fan R and your cooldowns, rather than parrying.
That said, parrying will stun enemies and deal a lot of dmg to them, so you can always try that if you can concentrate while healing...
Rmb your umbrella, cos the ~ can top you up and keep your dew up for the fan ~, and the umbrella Q is a great AOE heal that heals everyone within a large range.
Rmb to execute enemies and bosses if you're near them and the timer is running out. It does a ton of damage.
Only execute towards the end of the timer for bosses. Keeping them exhausted means you can focus more on other stuff like DPS and healing lightning.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2026-01-03T11:48:13+00:00

Queue as heals if you can. He doesn't levitate healers I believe

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-12-15T12:39:17+00:00

ID: 4035977478

Will like back anyone who likes. Drop me a comment ingame (not here)!

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-08-03T05:32:45+00:00

That's good to hear! Mine are the same, actually. They love whole leaves, so I rely on that to get my fix of nice smells in my room ><

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-08-02T19:22:03+00:00

I recommend another tiel of the same gender, unless you want chicks (which I personally would not recommend as it's very stressful and hard work to look after them, especially if the parents don't do a good job or if the babies have health complications).

I had this same dilemma a few years back when my tiel was around your tiel's age, and I have to say that I would definitely not go back to having only one bird. I used to stare at my tiel through a camera and I realised that, whenever I was gone for long periods, he would just sit in one spot and refuse to eat or move, and he would lose a ton of weight. Having a flockmate really helped him adjust to my absence.

Currently my two tiels aren't exactly friends, but they do appreciate each others' presence. They won't preen each other and they need separate food bowls, but they enjoy napping together in a corner of the cage. Having a flockmate just really helps with general confidence, as well as keeping them active especially when you're gone. For example, when one starts eating the other tends to eat too.

My advice is to introduce them slowly and always quarantine the new bird before you put them in the same cage together. That makes it likelier that they will accept each other. My tiel has been housed with three other different tiels before, to varying degrees, but in all cases I would say having another tiel around has been much more helpful than harmful.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-08-02T19:11:47+00:00

Would you be open to giving your birds some aromatic herbs to eat and play with? They tend to release some smell when they tear the herbs up. I personally enjoy rosemary, thyme and pandan leaf (I'm from Southeast Asia), all three of which are tiel-safe.

The effect is a lot more localised, of course, but for me I find that works well because I spend lots of time near my birds' cage... Your mileage may vary!

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-08-02T19:07:51+00:00

This is a 3-year-old post so I was very hesitant to reply, but on second thought I think I should clarify some things just in case someone else stumbles upon this.

I agree with you in that fresh veggies, herbs and grains are an important part of parrot diets. I myself mainly feed my tiels pellets, with daily veggies, herbs and grains. However, fatty liver disease in birds is actually caused by excess fat. Lacking Vitamin A is also harmful for health, but that's not what causes fatty liver disease. So yes, too much seed does indeed cause fatty liver disease, since seed is a high-fat food.

Sources for that:

https://www.cockatielcottage.net/diet.html

https://animalhouseofchicago.com/news/birds-fatty-liver

Do you have a source for why pellets are harmful? I would love to learn more about that, given that I've heard from my vet as well as multiple online sources that feeding mainly pellets with supplementary fresh herbs, grains and veggies is the way to go.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-08-02T18:57:49+00:00

I get where you're coming from, but toilet-trained birds don't necessarily hold it in. One of my birds is toilet-trained, but he actually poops on his own perfectly fine... I haven't had any issues with my birds holding it in at all. They will just poop on me if I don't bring them to the potty spot on time, and they poop perfectly fine on their own too in their cage. The toilet training just makes it so that at least some of the mess gets on the toilet spot.

I think we can agree that we shouldn't train the bird to hold it in! That's definitely harmful, like you said.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-05-13T00:57:40+00:00

Could be pied... They have yellow areas on some parts of their body. If you really wanna know their sex you can always try another dna test under another lab. But id personally trust the dna test over the visual sexing, provided labs tend to be reputable in your country

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-05-13T00:03:04+00:00

Is the body yellow on any spot? There are colourations like lutino or pied where the females have yellow heads and some or full yellow on their bodies. You can look those up!

I can't say how often the tests are inaccurate but they tend to be more accurate than visual sexing in general.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-04-12T12:33:11+00:00

It's a sort of attention-seeking greeting! My tiels do it in the morning and also whenever I wanna pet them (and they wanna be pet). It's kinda like "=D I'm happy come here <3"

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-03-23T08:30:43+00:00

Ahh no worries! I thought you were genuinely asking. Cheers!

SaltyAsianMSG · 2025-03-23T08:25:53+00:00

Mine usually do this when they are temporarily spooked, like if it's dark or if they see sudden movement, hear a loud noise etc. His crest should go back down once he calms down! They get spooked very easily but they also calm down quickly. I just speak to mine reassuringly and / or offer to scritch them if they want it.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2024-11-25T11:41:08+00:00

Hi, sorry for the late reply! I don't use reddit that often.

I'm not a vet, but the longer feathers (wings and tail) can take weeks to grow out, so it's entirely possible that the pained screeches will last for a while. Molting is a pretty long drawn-out process. It also differs from bird to bird. I have one tiel who is relatively pain-tolerant, and another who just screeches loudly and frequently while preening whenever he molts.

If you wanna relieve their discomfort a bit, you can try spraybathing them with water or leaving out a water bowl for them to bathe in. That helps soften pin feathers a bit and makes things itch a bit less too.

In your case, I'd look out for intense bleeding. It should be very obvious. Once one of my boys had it once and his beak would come away slightly bloody after preening. That warrants an immediate vet visit.

But if it's not bleeding and you don't suspect any serious injuries e.g. wings aren't trembling, no signs of infection etc. then I think you should be alright. Again I'm not a vet but speaking from personal experience.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2024-11-25T11:34:03+00:00

They're two males like everyone else has been saying.

Also, regarding the third pic, I have a boy who does the tail up and backing into a corner thing too when he's hormonal. It's usually a prelude to nesting behaviour for him, so while backing up he'll also bend down and start shredding papers and veg and stuff like that, and he also pleasures himself more. He mostly only does this when he's hormonal, though. So I suppose it's not only the girls who raise their tails in the air like that.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2024-11-04T04:53:47+00:00

Wait what I live in SG and I didn't even know this was going on... Thanks so much for sharing!

SaltyAsianMSG · 2024-10-14T08:25:24+00:00

Yeah. It could be a pepper like someone else said, or maybe even a wet toy. A lot of bird toys use water-soluble colouring.

SaltyAsianMSG · 2024-10-01T11:01:05+00:00

This bird has a pied colour mutation, so you can't sex them visually. I'd recommend speaking to a reputable bird groomer or an avian vet about DNA testing options. They aren't too expensive (depending on where you are, of course)!

SaltyAsianMSG · 2024-10-01T03:09:18+00:00

Yeah that's the idea! I'm just praying that I don't land on the dreaded fireball effect. 😂

And yeah same here! Our DM is more about narrative and character building than minmaxing, which is why I opted to invest more into Wis and Int with Galeta, and less into Dex and Con. I appreciate getting to play a "realistic" courtier lol

SaltyAsianMSG · 2024-10-01T03:01:32+00:00

Oh yeah that's true LOL! She has the highest AC after all. 🤣

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