Anyone else's bird do this?

by **hlasdf** » Tue Jul 23, 2013 5:05 pm

Sunny likes to chew on my hair sometimes, but not in the preening way you'd think. He gets a strand(s) of hair, snips it in half, and tries to eat it! :shock:

I always take it out of his mouth when I see him do it, but is there a way to discourage him from this? My hair as certainly become a bit more layered lately, haha. So far, I've just been shaking my head to get my hair out of his mouth before he manages to snip a piece off. I was wondering if anyone else's bird also does this?

by **Eric&Rebecca** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 10:48 am

Yes... we had a female cockatiel who used to bite the whiskers off our rabbit... in the days where people didn't know better but to keep birds away from other pets!

by **EleriDragonfly** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 1:21 pm

My budgie Sugar will sometimes nibble on my hair if my face I'm close enough, but she never takes any out or try to eat it or anything. I think she likes stringy things to nibble on.

by **hlasdf** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 2:03 pm

Eric&Rebecca wrote:Yes... we had a female cockatiel who used to bite the whiskers off our rabbit... in the days where people didn't know better but to keep birds away from other pets!

Oh, well at least I'm not alone. Did your cockatiel and rabbit get along nicely most of the time?

by **Eric&Rebecca** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 3:49 pm

Yes... It was a massive house rabbit so it didn't really move for anything. The cockatiel thought she was a rabbit too!

by **hlasdf** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:22 pm

Eric&Rebecca wrote:Yes... It was a massive house rabbit so it didn't really move for anything. The cockatiel thought she was a rabbit too!

Aaw, how adorable!

by **Eric&Rebecca** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:14 am

Obviously now we'd never risk it but at the time it was cute.

by **marie83** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 7:26 am

we cant let Ollie near our rabbit because he tries to bite his ears. Ollie prefers to be with us though so its easy to keep them apart, still have to keep a very close eye on them though but if things changed we would have them out 100% seperately.

by **Pajarita** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:37 pm

Sometimes, birds will not preen correctly. This is because psittacines are born very altricial and need to learn behaviors from their parents as they grow and, unfortunately for them, we take them away from their parents too early and before they could learn proper preening techniques. I have a Sunday conure that was given up because of his destructive preening behavior (he chews not only hair but also clothes much too often and much too hard -I've had to throw away most of my Tshirts and buy new ones because of this)

by **Eric&Rebecca** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 12:47 pm

I agree, the female we had was a rescue but was hand reared so that explains why. Luckily none of my birds have this tendency now :-)

Anyone else's bird do this?

Anyone else's bird do this?

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