strange behaviour

[lee ireland]

hi recently my green cheek has been great, progress moving great, generally lovely to to be around, craving for attention, greets us when we come home, loves being out the cage

he or she is nearly 7 months old, unsure about the sex

has been displaying weird body language, kind of of pulls the neck inwards and upwards at the same time then makes a weird squeak and repeats... gets worse when we watch

today has been off, earlier the bird was normal, i went out for a few hours came back and has been very bitty, weird marching displays and runs away from us

earlier was preening me now it bites

doesnt want attention nor did we have a greet when we came home

could this be mating behavior, puberty issues or a sign of illness?

[Wolf]

It is early for your bird to be going into puberty, but since they do reach maturity at about 1 year of age it is a distinct possibility, especially if they are not kept on a solar light schedule and/ or are on the wrong diet such as one that is high in protein. Since I answer so many people I sometimes lose track of what I have discussed with a person so please refresh my memory about your birds diet and light schedule.

[lee ireland]

hi thank you for the reply, my bird is on an organic pellets based diet... TOPS ORGANIC

seeds as treat

fresh fruit such as apples, banana, oranges, pineapple, mango mainly as this seems to be what it likes the most

the lighting is 7am - 8.30pm

he did fly into the window yesterday and seemed pretty pissed about it after but seemed fine in itself apart from being grumpy, it wasnt hard it was very minor just like the last few times,

im going to completely move everything in the cage around tomorrow to see if its just a territorial kind of thing as i hear moving everything around frequently prevents this more

before later today i was able to place my hand in the cage just like normal, hand feed, finger feed, allow it to preen my fingers however this was very fixated compared to normal

the seeds today as treat was very little as iv been busy today compared to other days so not as much time with the bird, i havent opened the cage today also due to yesterday i wanted a resting day / recovery

i will film this weird stand off the bird does tomorrow and upload to show,

just seems weird as everything was going well until later today, seemed like a different bird all together, jumpy, rigid, on edge, no interest in interaction and generally very snappy

[Wolf]

Yes, a video would help a lot, thank you for offering one.

[lee ireland]

so here's the dance at medium level lol, it gets worse from time to time, if on the floor it does weird slow head movements, iv looked back and found that it only happens to me, this movements happens not only when im close but also when im not... it gets worse if i get close

thats what made me think its a warning dance to scare me off from its home as its protection but then i look back and yesterday and other days it preened or tried to preen my fingers, if licks and pulls even the smallest of dead skin off my fingers if i have any lol

its also been holding onto the bars and flapping its wings as if its flying

on here iv been told my taming and basic training such as calling and step up is moving too fast however lets face it a bird wont do it unless it wanted to, nothing i do is forcing, i offer treats for things like step up, calling and closeness, things move fast... the treats have been cut everyday and still the same results, my bird even flew to me the other day so it shows that it wants to be close, it follows me in the cage ect... iv had it for 3 weeks and 3 days, its supposedly parent raised and is going through a molt so stress galore, now im starting to wonder whether if the bird is doing this just to be around me because it wants to mate lol would make sense

anyway here's the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Batf-v ... e=youtu.be

[lee ireland]

Also has been displaying minor head bobbing

[liz]

It looks to me that he wants to come out and play.

[Wolf]

Pajarita and I have slightly different ways of approaching the first month or so of a birds arrival in your home. Different, but also very similar, it is the difference in how we view things and she is much more experienced than I am. My main reason for telling new owners to leave the training until after the first month is to keep them from pushing the bird by getting all caught up in the thrill of training and not really paying attention to what the bird wants. It is very important to establish yourself as a trusted friend to the bird and you really can't do that by not listening to the bird. There are other factors involved with this but it is the main one. Learning is hard and stressful work and a baby can only deal with so much human learning, it has bird things to learn as well, it is a lot.
All interaction that you have with your bird friend is a learning experience and it doesn't take regular scheduled training sessions to be effective this is just how humans do things, not the way that animals do it.
I watched your video, thank you for sharing it as it was a wonderful help. Your bird is excited and happy to see you and wants to come out and be with and on you. There are no signs of puberty that I can see. Now, I don't have GCC's and they are a little different than my birds and they can get a bit bitey when they don't get what they want, especially when that something is companionship with you and sometimes the only thing that you can do is to whether through the nips and bites. Although the bird is wanting to come out to be on you and with you, it might help you to stay close to it and talk it down into a less excitable state of mind as this will help to reduce the biting. Excitement in birds is almost the same state as aggression in this respect.
You need to be aware that although the bird is bonding to you and wants to be with and on you, which you will soon discover will be most of the time, it doesn't yet fully trust you either, so you are working with a slightly paradoxical situation with it and knowledge of its body language as well as your own good judgement are your way through this until the bird trusts you fully which also takes a little time to happen.
I would say that it might be a good time to begin target training, but keep it down to 1 or 2 ten minute sessions per day for a while probably a couple of weeks at least and bear in mind that it is different than what you have done with the bird so far and it takes a little time to learn how to learn these things. Go slow and if the bird doesn't want to do it , you can always try again later on. Good luck and if you have more question please ask.

[lee ireland]

It looks to me that he wants to come out and play.

this was this morning about 30 minutes before he came out, even then he didnt want to know and still did this dance

[Wolf]

How much time does he have out of the cage on a daily basis? How much time on you, daily? What does he do with his out of cage time?