MICKY – Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

the Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoos are very docile. They can learn to speak and are easy to teach all kinds of tricks. This is a smaller cockatoo and they are sometimes referred to as the “apartment-sized cockatoo”. They are pretty birds with a delicate beautiful appearance and their movements are very gracefully.

Like cockatoos in general, they are a very loving type of bird. Affection is readily accepted and returned in kind. They are a pet that not only appreciates interaction but requires it and needs a lot of attention from their owners. Buy a cockatoo only if you can spend a lot of time with it.

Care and feeding of Sulphur Crested Cockatoo

Many birds can spend most of their time on a play pen or parrot perch.
They eat a variety of seeds, nuts, fruits, and commercial pellets, as well as the same nutritional foods humans eat.

Bird Food:
A Cockatoo diet consisting of a basic large hookbill seed mix with supplements of sprouted seeds and all sorts of fruits and vegetables is generally regarded as suitable.
Some examples of supplements are apples, pears, plums, raisons, oranges, bananas, peaches, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, chickweed, dandelions, and lots more! Do not feed avocado as it is toxic to birds!
Occasional proteins can be offered such as cottage cheese, bits of cheese, hard boiled eggs, canned dog food, and cooked meat bones. Stay away from highly seasoned, fatty processed meats.

Bird Grooming:
Lightly in the direction of the feathers on the tops of their heads, the neck area, and any other spots they can’t reach. This will aid in the removal of the clear feather sheaths that can become scratchy and irritating on fresh feathers.
If you want to discourage flight and prevent your pet from falling out of an open window or door, keep the wings trim. If the beak and claws are not worn down through climbing and gnawing, they must be trimmed.

Handling/Training

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (for Sale) parrots are highly intelligent but they are not know as great talkers. Their ability to repeat some words or sounds can be accomplished with repeated training, but this is not the cockatoo’s strength. Their outstanding ability comes from being great performers!
Cockatoos will use “tools”, various objects and toys to play and perform with, such as roller skating. They are very inventive and if toys are not provided they will use what is at hand. Objects ‘at hand’ often take the form of their food dishes and perches.

Taming Basics:
To be able to handle and train your cockatoo depends first on trust, so go slowly and be consistent. A hand fed baby will not need much taming and can often be handled right away, as it is use to human attention.

Initial Training:
Taming is done in stages, beginning with cage taming, in which you can approach your cockatoo’s cage without it jumping off its perch and flying to the other corner.
Hand taming is the next step, in which your cockatoo will climb on your hand and enable you to carry it around. You can do this by giving it food from outside the cage until it feels at ease with your touch.
As your cockatoo becomes comfortable with taking treats from your hand, you then open the cage door and repeat the same process but now you are reaching into it’s cage with the treat. Once you’ve earned it’s trust, your cockatoo will begin climbing on your hand and allowing you to pet him.
Advanced Training:
Other training, such as tricks and imitating speech will take patience and repeated efforts.

Activities

They are quite amusing. Cockatoos will play all day, taking only brief intervals for rest.
Getting your pet out of the cage and onto a playpen with lots of climbing branches is essential for his or her emotional well-being. These activities help to alleviate anxiety and prevent problems such as shrieking and feather picking. Provide your parrot with lots of activities in the form of large link chains, bird ladders, parrot swings, ropes, fresh branches for gnawing and chewing, and rotate new bird toys on a regular basis.
Once it has done this, it will accept and play with it for hours.
Cockatoos that have flight feathers will fly if they out of their cage. If you have a flight aviary, your cockatoo will love to fly between perches widely spaced apart. It will take about a year for its feathers to grow back.

Behavior

Feeding
The Sulphur-crested Cockatoos eat berries, seeds, nuts, and roots as part of their usual diet. It also accepts human handouts. Feeding is typically done in small to large groups, with one or more members of the group keeping an eye out for danger from a nearby perch. Birds will bite off tiny branches and leaves from trees while they are not feeding. These items, however, are not consumed. The activity may help to keep the bill in check and from growing out of control.
Breeding
The eggs are laid in a suitable tree hollow, which is prepared by both sexes. Both birds also incubate and care for the chicks. The chicks remain with the parents all year round and family groups will stay together indefinitely.