First off give it all the sleep it needs. You should let the room go dark with Sundown and light with Sunup so the birds can sleep all the dark hours as they would in the wild. NO lights on, NO disturbances and NO exceptions. The length of the darkness will automatically match their needed sleep time for that part of the year.

Hi all so i brought my cockatiel home yesturday morning and i spent 7 hours just watching him and talking to him and plan to dedicate a lot of training sessions with him to hand tame him which i have another post to make about tips.

my question relates by the fact when he has seen me he gets very excited and he excitedly chirps loudly. he has also been doing this with police sirens outside and unfortunately we live close to a police station in a flat.

we live in the basement flat and we just want to make sure our neighbours dont complain about his chirps.

We use the method atm with towels over his cage to quieten him down and then during the day lift the towels after he calms down so he can see he's not being punished. Before I cover him I wait till he chirps for 10 minutes. and only cover him for 2 minutes. because i believe its wrong to stop birds doing what they do instinctively. i just want to limit how much he does it at a time.

In case he gets wise to this are there any other methods i can try as a back up plan.

Also he is pretty quiet after i use the towel method do you think our neighbours would complain if they only hear him 2-3 times a day and never at night? thanks x