Anyone else's bird do this?

[GreenWing]

Oh yes, my Senegal does this. She especially likes to play with my hair when it's wet or braided.

[hlasdf]

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)

In that case, is there a way I can teach him to preen properly?

[Eric&Rebecca]

If he's hand reared no- its something parent raised birds learn from staying with their parents longer. This is one of the disadvantages of a hand raised bird, they end up missing out on a lot of the techniques required for life.

I don't think this will mean he will preen incorrectly however what he does to your hair will probably never stop. The only way you can alleviate that is stopping him from preening you all together.

I have a hand reared cockatiel who preens fine and so does the parent raised so its not something that happens everytime. However, this is why when we chose our second bird we went with parent raised, to help Edmund rekindle this 'natural' behaviour. George has been tamed but he still retains far more of his 'natural' tendencies than Edmund has ever had but Edmund is learning these from George.

[hlasdf]

If he's hand reared no- its something parent raised birds learn from staying with their parents longer. This is one of the disadvantages of a hand raised bird, they end up missing out on a lot of the techniques required for life.

I don't think this will mean he will preen incorrectly however what he does to your hair will probably never stop. The only way you can alleviate that is stopping him from preening you all together.

I have a hand reared cockatiel who preens fine and so does the parent raised so its not something that happens everytime. However, this is why when we chose our second bird we went with parent raised, to help Edmund rekindle this 'natural' behaviour. George has been tamed but he still retains far more of his 'natural' tendencies than Edmund has ever had but Edmund is learning these from George.

Oh, I see.
Well then I guess I'll just have to keep him from getting too close to my hair. Thank you!