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Locking Beaks

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Locking Beaks

Postby Daniel Chung » Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:08 pm

Right now I have two Quaker Parrots, one blue and one green, male and female respectively. Sometimes when they're on a perch together, they'll lock beaks sideways and shake back and forth. Is this activity aggressive or normal? I'm not too concerned about it but I'm just curious because they don't fight too much and they get along pretty well.
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Re: Locking Beaks

Postby Bird woman » Wed Jan 17, 2018 2:18 pm

Sounds very much like hormonal behavior , it is customary for the mated pair to feed each other . There should be some pictures on the internet to look at for a reference. Also there is beaking which is kind of a sparing action , more of a warning action. BW
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Re: Locking Beaks

Postby liz » Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:06 am

I break it up. I am afraid that one will break the beak of the other.
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Re: Locking Beaks

Postby Pajarita » Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:37 am

It would be better if you could post a video of it but your description sounds as if the male is feeding the female -which, unless you are in the Southern Hemisphere, should not be happening this time of the year. Quakers are from the temperate zone in South America [I know that many sites in the net say they are tropical but I think that's because people tend to think that all parrots are either tropical or semi-tropical but they are not -quakers come from my country and we are not tropical] and need to follow a VERY strict solar schedule because all temperate zone birds are much more 'sensitive' to long days than the tropical ones and become hormonal much more easily.

When they 'beak' each other [mild aggression], they don't actually lock their beaks together, it looks more like a 'fencing' thing so the head movement is not always the same and regularly repetitive - but, when the male feeds the female, they will both put their heads sideways so the beaks kind of 'fit' into one another in order for the female to be able to get the food from the male's beak without any spilling out. There is movement in both their heads when they do this, too, and this movement is steady and repetitive but short in duration because it stops as soon as his crop is empty.
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