Mating Response

[Manziboy]

Often, when I am trying to do trick training, Manzi will begin to show mating behavior. He will start whining, drooping his wings and will eventually move on to regurgitation. I'm not sure why he does this and it definitely gets in the way of training. If other people are around, he will not show this behavior. This has been a problem for quite a while now. I keep training sessions short because of this. I don't know if it has to do with his age. He is 4 years old and this past year has been much more "nesty" than ever before. He is always digging in corners and collecting scraps of paper for nests which he does defend, even from me. Does any one else have this problem? I'm not sure what I'm doing that's causing him to exhibit this behavior. I don't usually pet him much during training. Maybe even me giving him treats is making he do this. Manzi only does this during trick training. He has never done this during flight training.

[Michael]

Mona would be your best bet to answer this because she has experience with two mature african greys (though hens).

[Mona]

Hi Adele:

I have hens and I guess I'm lucky that I haven't really run into this "regurgitating or begging" behavior much at all.

I think the first thing you might look at is what might be a sexual trigger. You said that you aren't touching Manzi much...and that is the first place I would look. Are you touching him on the back or under his wings? Dr. Speer came to our bird club and discussed "Sex and the Single Parrot" years ago and one point he made is that we (people) often do not understand inappropriate touching. If that isn't it.....

It could be seasonal. The rainy season could be a trigger. You could look at lighting. If it's seasonal, time will extinguish it. If that isn't it....

You might want to think about setting up a modification plan. In other words, be careful not to reinforce the "begging behavior" by looking carefully at what precedes it and what immediately follows it. Start working on training and reinforcing behaviors (like maybe flight related behaviors) that do not trigger the begging behavior. Without reinforcement, the begging behaviors will extinguish.

The hard part is deciding what is reinforcing the "begging behaviors".....because it might not be something that is easy to recognize. It is probably something very subtle. You might try video taping some sessions.

Oh....also, these sorts of behaviors often extinguish if you work with the bird in an unfamiliar environment. You might try changing where you train Manzi....Take him to a friend or relative's house. Work on reinforcing the behaviors there....

In other words, it's one of those things that might require a little bit of strategy. I'm pretty sure that you absolutely can extinguish this sort of behavior, it just takes a lot of observation and experimentation.

Good luck!

[Michael]

This reminds me of Kili's bubbling behavior because she only did it for me with me but not for or near anyone else. I couldn't even get a decent video of it because she would get shy and not do it with the camera on.

I dunno if Manzi would freak but you may want to look into rearranging the cage and moving it to a new area. You may not be able to do this all at once, but you may have to shake things up a bit cause he may be getting nesty and territorial.

Is Manzi DNA sexed BTW?

[Manziboy]

Manzi is a DNA sexed male. His mating behavior is pretty bad. Within a minute of starting a training session he will begin to exhibit mating behavior (droopy wings, whining/grunting). I don't touch him at all. I have tried training on his play stand, the ground, the table and a chair. In all locations he does this immediately. When I have visitors, then he will do his tricks just fine, but when there are no visitors he begins his mating behaviors. While he is whining and drooping his wings, he will still do some of his tricks, but he gives up much more easily and is not focused at all. Once again, during flight training, this is not a problem at all. Just during trick training. Maybe because he knows he has to fly.