by Pajarita » Thu Dec 10, 2015 11:54 am
Yep, both Liz and Wolf are correct. Parrots are like people when it comes to falling in love and as the French says: 'Le coeur a raisons que la raison ne connait!' (the heart has reasons that reason doesn't know of). Your parrot has chosen your husband and you are the competition for his love. BUT you can make things better and I'll tell you how.
First, you need to make sure the bird is not hormonal and, for this, you need to keep it to a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk and not free-feed high protein (if you are already doing this, just skip this paragraph). So no filling up the bowl in the morning with pellets or seeds, it need to eat something like gloop or chop for breakfast (check the diet section) and get just a measured amount of high protein food (pellets, seeds, nuts, nutriberries, avicakes, etc) for his dinner (and whatever is left over after he goes to sleep, you take away). Then you need to allow the bird to fly around (flying dissipates sexual hormones from their bloodstream and distracts them). You don't need to ask him to step up for this, just open the cage and walk away. If you do this a couple of hours before you serve his dinner (I am turning off the overhead lights and giving them dinner at 3:30 pm this time of the year) and did not give him high protein in the morning, he will go back into his cage on his own.
Then you need to show him that you are not competition so do not hug, kiss or even touch your husband in front of him. Parrots are very jealous of their mates and do not put up with any nonsense when it comes to them so, although it sounds extreme, believe me when I tell you it works. He needs to regard you as a flock mate and, for that, you need to interact with him on his terms so let him out of his cage without asking him for any physical interaction with you, talk, sing, whistle even dance for him but do not try to touch him. Offer him a treat every now and then but, if he doesn't take it from your fingers, just leave it near him and walk away (the treat should not be a 'bribe' but a 'gift').
Last but not least, put a good full spectrum light (CRI 94+, Ktemp 5000) in the ceiling fixture of the room where his cage is (good light makes him produce the happy and the reward hormones which will help with his mood -happy birds are not aggressive birds)
Now, if he has been kept at a human light schedule and fed high protein all the time, it's going to take months for him to adjust to the seasons and, unfortunately, this is not the best time of the year to do it because we are nearing the winter solstice when the days start becoming longer preparing for the breeding season but you need to start doing it at one point or another and the sooner the better.