How does one encourage a cockatiel to start talking?

[Champion]

Champ is the name of my daughters pet she bought 2 weeks ago. We are not sure how old but he? she? is very friendly. They are often together. If she leaves him out to play and goes outside for a while when she returns he will fly to her and attemp to land on her. Yep, I said fly. He can fly up our 9 foot ceilings. But thanks to some of the older notes here I saw how to trim the wings but haven't done it yet. My daughter is 10 and though she understands it may never talk she would like to start how ever you encourage them. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is there a better way then guessing or waiting for the appearance of eggs to tell sex? Thanks .....

[Champion]

Oh, I found the great info on a few pages back about sexing birds, according to what I read she has a boy bird, now about teaching it to talk......

[charmedagain]

Hi depending on the colour of the bird you can usually tell the sex a normal grey cockatiel male will have a bright yellow face and bright orange cheek patches and no barring on the underside of his tail feathers.
A normal grey female will have a duller coloured head and duller cheek patches..

Lutino's,whites, are usually abit harder to sex.

Males usually make the most noise.
The chances of your daughters bird talking is a good one it takes time and patience.

Repeating simple words like hello, kiss kiss things like that repeating them a few times a day he/she will soon pick up the words and will eventually just come out and say them.

But this can take weeks,months or even a year to get them to speak but persistants does pay off eventually.

Since he flys to your daughter when she enters the room then she is the best person to teach him things.

I click my fingers and hold my arm out they now know that when they hear anyone clicking there fingers that they can go and perch on them..

They are quick learners but should not be pushed to hard as they will get bored.

Good luck and hope all goes well.

mike