At this point you can just let her go when she's ready to leave. It'll be a better relationship if she knows she has a choice most of the time and doesn't always have to do what you want whether she likes it or not. There are times when birds DO have to do what we want, like going in the cage when it's time for us to go to school or work. But they have a lot of autonomy in the wild and we should allow them as much as we reasonably can.

With her wings clipped, she isn't likely to be seriously hurt even if she does crash into a window because her speed has been reduced a lot. It's dangerous though when a fully flighted bird hits the glass at full speed because the impact will have a lot of force.

Ceiling fans are very dangerous of course. Here's what I did so I could run the ceiling fan in the bird room while the birds are out:

She does seem more willing to step up onto my finger when she's out of the cage, but when it comes to the inside, she still doesn't seem interested. She doesn't run away from my hand when I'm about to grab her as much as she used to. Should I just open the cage door and let her come out on her own accord, this time?

My main concern of letting her leave me is if she ends up somewhere I least want her to, like places she could get stuck in. My house isn't really fully bird proof, and we don't have any "bird rooms". Once I move into my own place, I'm definitely going to try and make it safe as possible for just animals in general (I have a dog too). It's going to be quite a while until then, though, and I just want to do everything within my power to keep her safe, but also happy (and I feel like keeping her in the cage is not the way to go with this).

That's pretty clever! The ceiling fan is a light as well, and out of the two, it's the only light that works in the kitchen. I'm wondering if I could get my parents to install something like this. Since it's their house, I don't have much say with installments, placements, and arrangement to it. That's why I'm trying to find things that they won't object to.

Many ceiling fan and light combinations let you use either one by itself without running the other one at the same time. So you could take a look at what your options are.

If there's a dog in the house that might be a big part of the reason that she's reluctant to come out of the cage. I don't have dogs or cats so my birds aren't used to them. Cockatiels have an instinctive fear of hawks - they'll freak out if they see a hawk through the window but they're not afraid of other birds (except vultures) so they can definitely tell the difference. They seem to have an instinctive fear of dogs and cats too but it isn't as strong as the hawk fear. Just keep showing her that nothing bad happens when she's out of the cage and she'll adjust. On those occasions where she suddenly wants to get away from you, take a moment to pay attention to what else is going on. If might be that something has spooked her and she wants to move somewhere that feels safer.

So far there's only been one person who returned a bird to me because it didn't adjust to their household, and they had a cat running around the house. The cat wasn't interested in the birds at all but the bird was still afraid after a month. They also had an African grey in the same room, and I'm not sure the tiel could tell the difference between a grey and a hawk. The grey watched LOUD Spongebob Squarepants cartoons all day which may have been the scariest thing of all lol. When the bird was returned to me she settled right in as though she'd never been away, and later went to a new home where she was happy and well adjusted.

Our ceiling fan light is old and a bit weird with the wiring. It works with the light switch, but one chain does nothing, while the other chain turns off both, and turns on the fan part.

I do have a dog, but he's an 8lb chicken, basically. She does seem to become more uneasy when he enters the room. My pionus is also territorial with his cage, and while he doesn't mind Lucy, he starts acting pretty crazy when we get near his cage (makes it inconvenient when her cage is right next to his). I do plan on trying to ease her in with the dog. My dog does get curious when he's not being afraid, but he'd just do something like sniff the tip of her tail. If she were a reptile, that would be a different story. I hope one day they will get used to each other.

Well I'm sure that the grey, being bigger and all, could have still been intimidating to the bird, especially if it displayed aggressive behavior towards the teil. And I would think that the noise between the grey, and the tv would probably be pretty nerve wracking. Our house isn't loud volume wise, thankfully (I have trouble in loud environments myself for too long. That's why I wouldn't be able to have larger birds like the bigger species of cockatoos and macaws), and though Dudley is a bit of a grumpy old man, Lucy doesn't show any signs of fearing him. In fact, one time she hissed at him. They don't bother each other though, and considering that her favorite perch is on the side closest to Dudley's cage, I don't think she's bothered by him.

It sudden noises are what could set her off too, that could be understandable. Our freezer has an ice dispenser, and every once in a while it makes noise when it's making the ice. The sound of the air conditioner is also somewhat noticeable, and my dad collects clocks (only 3 of them make noise though).

He'd probably would hate my house then. And Medusa.

Oh, I'm not saying he hates reptiles. It's quite the opposite, actually. He chases lizards in the backyard all the time. Not sure what he plans on doing with then when he catches them, since I don't let him keep them long enough to find out.

He often ignores our big desert tortoise, though the first baby tortoise he's ever seen, he was confused. He didn't know how to chase it, since it was much slower than him, so he just stood there and barked (we had a male tortoise that mated with our female, and their species lays fertile eggs up to four years after insemination). He's never been around snakes though, so I don't know how he'd react, and frankly, I don't want to find out, since one common species here is the rattle snake, which if VERY poisonous.

He's terrified of bugs though, and not just big ones. I found out about this when a feeding cricket escaped while I was watching my friend's leopard gecko, and found it alive and crawling around, about a month later (how it survived all this time, I have no idea). My dog was running away from it as it was crawling towards him.

Not sure how he is with birds to be honest. He hasn't been around them that often (except for Dudley, but they just have staring contests, and Dudley will drop his food for him sometimes, for my dog to eat it, because he likes bird seed for whatever reason). I was once raising a baby dove, and I allowed my dog to sniff it, and it pecked him on the nose.

By the way, I love your ball python! She's so pretty.

Well I let her out again. This time, I just set her on top of her cage. She hung out there for a few minutes, then went to the top of Dudley's cage. Then back to her cage, then Dudley's cage again. Then she climbed down the side of her cage, and tried to sit on the edge of the perch sticking out, so I opened the cage door for her. Well, she decided to hop over to Dudley's cage again, and climb down. Dudley, being the grumpy bird he is, was being territorial, and started to go after Lucy. I was about to intervene so she wouldn't get hurt, but it looks like she already got the message and flew out from between their two cages. She stepped up onto my finger when I offered, and I sat her on the couch next to me. Then she flew back to her cage and got in herself.

Am I doing something wrong here? I thought she was just starting to get used to me. The dog wasn't even anywhere to be seen.

I think you're doing great. You gave her the option to go back into her own cage and she didn't want to go, not for a while at least. This is a bird who could hardly be gotten out of the cage a couple of days ago. She stepped up on your finger too and willingly went where you put her. It's going to take time for her to form a bond with you, but since Dudley doesn't appreciate her companionship that leaves you as her main social outlet. She hasn't figured that out yet but she will.

Well she wasn't really willing to step out of the cage. She's actually gone back to not wanting to step up onto my hand at all. She doesn't freak out as much when I grab her, but she still won't step up onto my hand, unless if she's already out of the cage. I don't understand why.

But I figured out how to turn off the fan part of the ceiling fan, finally. Thank goodness I did too. I don't want to take another chance with it running while she's out.

A bird in a new home usually spends most of its time in the cage at first so they feel safer there than they do outside the cage. So she's reluctant to leave and doesn't want to step up because she knows that's likely to lead to being taken out of the cage. You could practice some step-ups in the cage where you immediately put her back down on the perch and give her a treat, so she learns that stepping up is good and it doesn't inevitably lead to leaving the cage.

Once she's already out of the cage she obviously doesn't have to worry that she's going to be taken out of the cage, so from her point of view there are no unwanted consequences to stepping up.

My cockatiels really really love dried cantaloupe seeds and I use them as training rewards. I never taught Lucy about them but she would probably learn pretty quickly if you dropped a few in her seed dish or fed them to her from your hand. You can't buy them though, you have to make your own. I have a dehydrator and use that to dry them out, but it should be easy to dry them in the oven similar to the way that you'd dry pumpkin seeds for snacks.