What to do about mating with toys?

[paper_lantern]

So as I previously posted, Chubby has been VERY hormonal lately. He screams more, bites more, tries to regurgitate on me and mate with my hands, etc. Today he started mating with his favorite toy. I looked online and read multiple opinions. Should I remove the toy? Or leave him alone? I feel bad taking it away because it really is his favorite, even before he started mating with it he played with it all the time. But if it's better to remove it I will.

Thoughts?

[friend2parrots]

you may have already come across this in your online research, but I have heard that the following things promote increased mating related hormone release in parrots:

(other forum members, please add to this list if you know of any more factors, thanks! )

-increased length of day (including the number of hours you have your electric lights on),
-increased heat (i.e. in the winter when you turn on the heat) ,
- any object in the cage or house that resembles a nest cavity, like a hut, a box, or even something the bird has discovered on its own and is fascinated with, like a cupboard,
- cuddling
- touching of feathers anywhere on body

you may have success reducing the hormonal behavior if you reduce any or all of the above factors. i know it may sound cruel to take the toy away for now, but that is what I would suggest for now. you may be able to give it back to him once his hormones have calmed down a bit, after you have reduced some of the factors in the list above.

also, once his hormones settle down, you can slowly reintroduce a scheduled short, light cuddling session, once you see him improve a little. gccs love being cuddled and i do believe they need it for their emotional well being, but at a balanced, scheduled amount. scheduled cuddling really reassures my gcc that all is well in his world. once you've got yours calmed down and mellow and nonhormonal, you can schedule some amount of cuddling that still keeps him mellow and nonhormonal.

12 hours of sleep per night in a quiet darkened room with no light source (except a nightlight) also really helps.

you are right to be concerned with his mating and hormonal behavior toward you, mainly because it is an indication of a high hormone load - which is not good for his system in the long run. but once you have been able to bring his hormone level down (it may take a couple of weeks) he will be calmer and you will be able to reintroduce his favorite toy.

hope that helped - my Gcc went through something similar to this a few years back, and I actually did what I listed above - and it worked wonders to calm him down. back then he actually went from being hyper, high strung, and interested in mating with everything to really mellow and laid back, more independent, but still playful, alert, and loving. (of course things are a little different now after his spook out six months ago, but I am still trying to stick to the list above, just to give him a stable sense of well being as he gets better. the mating hormones, my vet told me, would actually add to the spook-out stress hormones now floating around in his bloodstream to make things worse)

all the best, and let us know how it goes!

[GreenWing]

Friend2parrots gives some great and helpful advice there.

I agree, removing the toy sounds like a good idea, since your bird sees it as a sexual object.

You have my empathy, though; I'm in for the same ride. I'm not quite there with Tiki yet but she does a mating dance for me from time to time. Obviously, she wants me to be her mate. We are bonded and perhaps it's when we bond that the bird "oxytocin" of sorts (is it mesotocin?) soars for her, so I need to watch myself more (ie, how I pet her). The dancing is less frequent presently, BUT when her wings droop and she starts dancing, I immediately put her in her cage and this has helped (I think -- she's not doing it as much but she'll still pull it every once in a while). My point is, anything that encourages the bird to be sexual, remove an item and/or put a stop to the behavior right away. 'Hope this helps...

Quick question on this note: Can anyone offer some advice on how to pet your bird and bond with your bird without it being sexual? For instance, is head scratching sexual to a bird?

[CarlosQuaker]

I just ignore my Quaker when he does this to his swing. He only does it occasionally, and is not possessive of it. Maybe try to find your GCC a replacement toy, taking his favourite toy might upset him. Give him a new toy, and once he's become quite attached to it, remove his old favourite. Hope this helps!

[marie83]

I'm suprised shortening your green cheeks days worked tbh, usually they breed when there is less light so if anything that would encourage them with their hormones. Its important to look at the breeding cycles that would naturally occur in the wild to your particular species. Temperature management can also help but again, look into your individual species.

Food management helps, overfeeding can help encourage the hormones, parrots have enough sense/instincts to know not to breed when food is scarce. Only feed what your parrot actually needs.
Avoid warm, mushy foods for a while.

As others have said beware of anything that can be seen as a nest.
In extreme hormonal bird cases sometimes removing anything shreddable can help, shreddable stuff can be seen as nesting materials.

As for the toy, then yes I would take it out for a little while, then keep rotating the toys reguarly to prevent any sort of attatchment to them building up- or at least move them about within the cage if there is a certain 1 your parrot really cant be without and perhaps add something to it/change its apperance somehow to see if that distracts from the behaviour.


Scratching anywhere I believe can encourage sexual behaviours- think of it like people kissing, it can be friendly peck or a long snog can lead to something more. I think its best to limit physical attention anywhere on the body to short bursts, rather than an extended session.

[friend2parrots]

I'm suprised shortening your green cheeks days worked tbh, usually they breed when there is less light so if anything that would encourage them with their hormones.

this is an interesting point you raise marie - do you think that green cheeks as a species prefer to breed WHEN there is less light or WHERE there is less light (hence the advice to get rid of dark corners and nestbox-like things)? i'm not familiar with the mating behavior of green cheeks in the wild, i've just pretty much gone with what i've been advised. and i totally agree that its really important to look at what one's bird is doing in a species specific way.

for Ringo, maybe what helped him to become less hormonal was the other factors, all put together - i think he was sleep deprived, and he just loved his cuddles like anything, so we cuddled him more than we ought to have in his first two and ahalf years or so. thus what helped was a "therapy" of 12 hours of deep, quiet undisturbed sleep, no happy hut, and much less daily cuddling, and more non-cuddly play, with lots of flight time thrown in. it took about 2 months to see the change in his behavior. after this "calm-down" period, i didnt need to stick to everything i listed above. we afterwards set up a short-cuddle schedule (what marie says is important- the cuddle sessions should be VERY short), i replaced his happy hut, and let him get less sleep on an occasional basis if we were doing fun evening activites that he would like, like having company over, or going on a trip or vacation, visiting people, etc.

as far as the toys are concerned, i agree that rotating is the way to go.

[marie83]

I can definitely confirm that Ollie is hormonal around this time of year when the daylight hours are shortest. Its also the time of year when Ollies breeders pairs go to nest although some do go a little earlier or later but never through our summers.
I'm not 100% sure on the routines of wild green cheeks but to me from my experiences with Ollie and from what the breeder has told me, it says it all. I can only say that it came as a big suprise to me as well because everything I have read in the past kind of said that parrots nest in the lighter months so it never occured to me it was species specific.

Makes it alot harder for me to use light manipulation methods though since my cockatiel gets hormonal when there is more light and the green cheek less light so I tend to use the other methods to help things rather than light manipulation methods.

Funnily enough george my peach fronted conure never seemed to really display any hormonal behaviours, even through puberty he was a pretty steady bird throughout the year, whereas all the 'tiels, budgie and rosella were spring/summertime so I never thought to question it until we got Ollie.

[GreenWing]

Scratching anywhere I believe can encourage sexual behaviours- think of it like people kissing, it can be friendly peck or a long snog can lead to something more. I think its best to limit physical attention anywhere on the body to short bursts, rather than an extended session.

Thanks for this bit, very helpful. I'm now working on not scratching her for long. I would kiss her on her belly as she'd be cupped in my hand, but... not anymore, for obvious reasons! Anyway, Tiki did a mating dance right next to my hand a minute ago... she was, I think, trying to mate with my hand... or wanting my hand to mate with her. I set her in her cage right away and she tries to turn on the charm... talking a lot, making cute noises and calls. She wants me to let her out. Am I to ignore her while she does this? If I let her back out she'll just get all hot and bothered again.

Guys, I think it's happening. My bird has to be hormonal! She's been nippy over her food lately... not biting but threatening to bite... I'll set some food down for her and she'll charge at the food as I set it down.

Paper_Lantern, I know how you feel!