A sulphur-crested cockatoo generates more record-worthy life in a week than many pets do in a year: volume, opinions, destruction, devotion. This big white cockatoo with the yellow crest is long-lived and intensely social, and its file needs to capture behaviour and routine as faithfully as body weight, because with this species the behaviour log is usually where the earliest warnings live.
Identity, source, and the paper trail
Begin with permanent identity: microchip details if fitted, any leg band information, and complete source paperwork — breeder, rescue, or previous owner — kept with transfer documents and receipts. Photograph the bird clearly, noting any distinguishing marks on the beak or feet, and record sex if it was reliably established. Write down previous homes and known history in plain language; a cockatoo rehomed after screaming complaints in a flat carries context a future carer deserves to know, and a vet behaviourist will ask for it directly.
Weight, diet, and body care
Log weight on a perch scale at a regular interval, noting time of day, and record the staple diet plus the nuts, vegetables, and treats actually eaten rather than offered — sulphur-crested cockatoos are champion food-wasters, and the bowl can claim a healthier diet than the bird ate. Note beak and nail condition and any professional trims, plus powder down and feather condition through moults. Keep dated droppings notes, particularly across diet changes or stressful weeks like holidays with house guests, when eating patterns in a sensitive cockatoo often slip first.
The behaviour log this species demands
Date and describe feather-damaging behaviour precisely: which areas, whether feathers are chewed, plucked, or over-preened, what time of day it happens, and what preceded it. Log screaming patterns the same way — dawn and dusk calling is natural for this species, but a new midday pattern after a routine change is information. Record sleep hours, out-of-cage time, who provided company, and which foraging toys, cardboard destruction projects, and training games genuinely occupied the bird. Over months, this log shows the difference between a cockatoo who is bored, one who is bonded to a single person, and one whose change deserves a vet visit.
Handling, household, and vet records
Note who can handle the bird confidently, who it lunges at, and how it behaves with visitors, children, and other pets, updating the page after incidents rather than relying on a general "friendly" label. File every avian vet report, test result, and recommendation with the concern that prompted it, and keep current observations — appetite, voice, droppings, energy — on a summary page. Seek avian veterinary advice promptly if a sulphur-crested cockatoo stops eating, breathes with effort, injures itself while damaging feathers, or becomes suddenly quiet in a way that is out of character for a normally boisterous bird.
Notes that protect the next carer
Finish with the routine page: wake and sleep times, cover routine, favourite foods and games, words and sounds it makes, and the calming strategies that work when it is wound up. A cockatoo's welfare depends on routine surviving its owner's absence, and this page is how that happens. KinsLe's Pet Passport keeps a sulphur-crested cockatoo's identity, diet, behaviour, and veterinary records together in one portable packet, ready for a vet, a boarder, or a future home.