It\u2019s been a very long time since I last posted anything about Paquito, my hand-raised cockatiel, who recently turned 15. The reason is that for the past few years his feathers have been in very poor condition and he hasn\u2019t been feeling well. Apparently, in the end it turned out to be fatty liver disease (a very common condition in this species) caused by feeding him a diet made up only of seeds. That\u2019s the only kind of food they sell here in Marchena for cockatiels, and I didn\u2019t know it was unhealthy for them. Since I started buying him a pellet food on Amazon (one made for budgerigars, because the one made for cockatiels is too large for him to eat, but he absolutely loves the budgie one\u2014I buy one called Versele\u2011Laga B14), he has become much more lively. He chatters constantly and has started molting his feathers, so I hope that this time they will grow back beautiful and healthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cockatiels belong to the parrot family. Like parakeets and other psittacine species such as parrots and cockatoos, when humans hand-feed them from a very young age with formula, they become familiar with people, very tame, and can learn words and whistles. In this particular case, I wasn\u2019t the one who hand-fed him. A breeder from Palma del R\u00edo (C\u00f3rdoba) raised him and sold him to me already hand-fed, when he was about 30 days old. I went to pick him up there on December 28, 2010\u2014I still remember the date. His name is Paquito because he started saying it before I had even chosen a name for him. It turns out the breeder kept him in a cage with his father\u2014what he called his \u201ctutor\u201d\u2014so he could learn from him, because his father used to say \u201cPaquito\u201d a lot. An interesting curiosity about cockatiels is that they are the species of bird that sneezes the most. It\u2019s very funny to watch them sneeze. It\u2019s not because they have a cold; it\u2019s just something they commonly do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I made this video when he turned 10 years old to post on my social media. It\u2019s a compilation of different videos I had of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n