Cockatiels will only be able to go without food for 48 hours although the negative effects of starvation may start taking affect 18 – 24 hours. The same can be said for the lack of water consumption although there are elements of nuance here, especially if the food being consumed is high in water content.

How Long Can A Cockatiel Live Without Water?

Cockatiels are bigger than parakeets or lovebirds but, the number of hours they can survive without water would be around the same timeframe if not a little longer. In general cockatiels they can go without water for around 48 hours before it does start affecting them.

If the food they eat are mostly water based like kale, spinach, celery among other fruits and berries, technically speaking they would satisfy the hydration needs for most cockatiels meaning they will stay hydrated despite the lack of pure H2O.

Now if they only consume dry food that has minimal water within it, the cockatiel may make it past 48 hours but, it’s unlikely they’ll survive beyond that.

Don’t go out of your way to find out though, that would be way to cruel an experiment to do.

How Much Food Do Cockatiels Need To Live?

As for how much food these rosy cheeked parrots require to live, it’s recommended that they eat around 30 – 40 grams per day, with pelleted seeds accounting for 60 – 80%, vegetables around 15 – 25% and fruits roughly 5 – 15%.

This will ensure your cockatiel is well fed and go about their day with energy and enthusiasm. As cockatiels only eat the amount of food they need to as opposed to pigging out like dogs or cats, you won’t need to change their food or water bowls anywhere near as often as the others.

In reality you could probably get away with feeding them less food but, it’s definitely not recommended as birds tend to have very fast metabolisms which will burn away at their already light bodyweight.

Considering parakeets eat around 12 – 16 calories per day and cockatiels are a good bit heavier and eat double their amount, when converted that would be around 2 – 4 grams of weight burned off per day without any food.

What this probably means is that your average cockatiel wouldn’t make it past a few weeks if the portion sizes were decreased exponentially.

How Often Should You Change Your Cockatiels Food?

Most birds tend to only eat a portion of their food per day, particularly their pelleted seeds so swapping them out every other day or even every 3 days can be fine otherwise a lot of seeds would be wasted. Instead what you could do is blow away all the left over seed shells so the edible portions remain.

If you serve a variety of fruits and vegetables too, switching them out daily is a must otherwise harmful bacteria would start growing and potentially causing your cockatiel harm.

As for the water, that should be switched out every day if not twice a day depending on how much is depleted and how dirty it gets over the day.

Some cockatiels do like to have a bath so it possible that the water could be used for a wash. Feathers and sometimes even droppings could find its way into the water bowl . Which is why it’s important to switch the water out the regularly.

Most cockatiel owners tend to switch these out everyday anyways so, if you’re on the more forgetful side, going that route isn’t a bad idea, even if you would be quite wasteful doing so.

How Long Can Your Cockatiel Be Left Alone?

If you consider how often their food needs to be changed, leaving your cockatiel alone for more than a day is not recommended. Therefore, if you are going out on a trip which may encompass the entire weekend, you would need someone else to watch your bird or take them along with you.

Yes, most cockatiels will be able to survive between 2 – 3 days on the pelleted seeds supply but, the water will likely be contaminated within the day, especially if 2 are sharing the same cage.

If you’re only away for the day due to work, which could be 12+ hours in some cases, your cockatiel won’t suffer nearly as other than a bit of stress. On the other hand multiple days without change will not only stress them out but could also result in them starving due to the food going off.

This issue would be far worse if you only have a singular cockatiel who has no one to socialise with throughout the day.

In such a situation, if you’re unable to provide the necessary social time, you could opt to buy a companion that they can pass the time with.

Other than that you could also do the following to make sure your cockatiel gets through the day in relative comfort without you around:

• Keep the tv or radio on so they have something to interact with
• Open the curtains so they can look outside
• Provide them with unique toys to play with
• Make it more challenging to get to their food using up more of their time.

If its a normal work day, other than a bit of stress and boredom due to the lack of socialisation most cockatiels will be able to handle being alone for a day.

However, anything beyond will require some form of assistance as the food does need changing. The same would apply to their cage to upkeeping and maintaining all these moving pieces would be necessary in keeping your cockatiel both healthy and alive.

Summary

Most cockatiels are unlikely to survive beyond 48 hours without food. This is as a result of their fast metabolic rate although the effects of starvation is likely to occur within18 – 24 hours. So, be sure to top up their food bowl on a regular basis. If you don’t their metabolic rate will catch up and result in the cockatiels possible demise.