Odd Behaviors and Snuggle Hut

[lizarosco]

For the last few months my sun conure has formed the habit of regurgitating on anything she can constantly day in and day out. Mainly on her food bowls and more recently in her snuggle hut. I've looked online about the snuggle huts and now I'm worried about her having one though she has had one for all the 8 years that she's been alive and with me. The whole bottom of the hut gets covered in dry throw up and I have to wash it constantly or buy new ones. Now I'm worried if she's been ingesting the fibers and I feel panicked because she's been doing this with the huts for months now and I'm only now doing something about it. I had asked my vet about the behavior and all they said was that it's a behavioral issue and left it at that.

What do I do? Do I get rid of the snuggle hut? What can I use as a replacement since she's never slept in anything other than a hut? And if she's been ingesting fibers all this time what can I do to reverse the damage? She's had x rays done when they last checked her but I don't know if those fibers would show up or not. I feel really worried now and upset that I've let this go on for as long as I have.

Oh and another thing is that for the last year she has moments where she's awake in the middle of the night making random noises or she'll wake up to go to her food bowl to jiggle it around loudly and regurgitate on it. That was the first behavior to emerge. Then it was the constant regurgitating on everything and now it's the regurgitating on and picking at of her snuggle hut.

[Chantilly]

I really dont know if it is a 'bad habit' or if it could actually be a 'bad problem'
but If you take out the snuggle hut, dont worry, she will either sleep on a perch, toy, on the side of her cage ect:... If I was you I would take the cuddle hut out for a while atleast, and see how everything goes..
The others will be able to help you more, but I really hope every thing Is all good with Fawkes.

[liz]

Constant regurgitating could be a sign of illness. Little birds being prey animals hide their illnesses until it is almost too late.
The only time my birds do a regurg is when they are feeding one of their friends or me. Mine do it as a loving response.
If your baby still regurgitates after you remove the hut please take it to an avian vet. I sure hope it is corrected by taking the hut out. Not meaning to scare you but there could be an obstruction in his digestive system.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that the hut is the problem.

[Wolf]

The first thing that I would do is to remove the hut, Later on you can get a different one that is not covered with fleece or get one of those sea grass mats and roll it up to make a hut type thing. The next thing would be to remove the toys that are being regurgitated on and replace them one at a time with different toys. If there is a mirror in the cage, I would get rid of it. That should help cut back on the regurgitation which I worry about due to the frequency of it.

If the bird has not seen a vet recently then it needs to have a check up and check for any thing like slow crop as well as for obstructions in the remainder of the digestive tract.

You could be lucky and all of this could simply be due to hormones, but it is always wisest to eliminate any possible medical reason for this behavior as frequent regurgitation can be the result of disease or infections.

[lizarosco]

I removed the hut first thing when I got up this morning. She'll have to make do with sleeping without it for the first time since she hatched. She doesn't regurgitate on her toys and no mirrors are in the cage so it's just the snuggle hut that she's been chewing/regurgitating all over and her seed/pellet and fruit/veggie bowls. I ordered some new toys just in case she needs something new to focus on and some flat perches and sea grass mats to make a new hut later.

The last time I took her to the vet was around October/November when that whole "the vet assistant broke her wing during an annual checkup and x rays" thing that happened. I guess I'll need to go to a different vet because of that incident and because when I first came in for that checkup the regurgitation and seizure like incident she had were my concerns. And all they said was she looked healthy and her stool samples and blood tests were all healthy. She'd already been regurgitating for about half a year at that point.

It's been not too good of a last year in that area with her. Could it be possible that another vet will find something that my current vet did not catch even with all the tests and x rays?

I feel terrible that I've let these issues go on so long. It's as though as I neglected my own health I've also been lax with hers. I hope to change it all around and get back to a healthy way of life for both she and I like when I had first acquired her.

[Wolf]

I really can't presume what a new vet will or will not find, but this is rather unusual for any bird to regurgitate this much. I suppose that it could be a behavioral issue without any medical reason, but that too would be highly unusual.

If I approach this from the standpoint of it being psychological in nature then I need to find out what type of waking and sleeping schedule is the bird on. How much time out of cage does the bird have daily and how much of that is personal interaction and what does that interaction consist of. I also went back and read the previous posts concerning you and Fawkes so as to refresh my memory of what has gone before. Are you still in school? And if so this means that you are not with Fawkes most of the time, except for breaks in your school schedule or do you take him with you? This may or may not have something to do with this unusual regurgitation issue.

[liz]

Any progress today?

[lizarosco]

I'm no longer in school. Due to health and personal reasons, I decided to leave for the semester and attempt to find a job. I still live with my parents. It's a long story, but basically I have my own behavioral issues

So that means I'm here everyday. I almost never leave the house except on Saturdays and Sunday's. She's out for hours at a time but all she does is lay in the bed with me or I'll walk around a bit with her. The birds are all confined solely to my bedroom since the parakeets are not tame, my cockatiel is flighted so I'm afraid to let him out of the room with 8 dogs in the house, and since Fawkes likes to attack every human besides me, she's stuck in my room as well. It's a really big room but I feel it must be very trapping for them.

The only activity she seemed to enjoy was going into the dresser to chew on my clothes but that's no longer allowed, now that I realize she shouldn't be chewing on fabrics and such. So yesterday after taking the hut out I took her out and just spent time with her on the bed watching tv or let her stay on my shoulder as I did a few errands in the house where the dogs couldn't reach her if she were to accidentally fall.

She used to be tame with everyone in the house and get along with my ex boyfriends but now she won't put up with anyone except me and it really sucks since everyone misses playing with her. I'm realizing I don't know what to do to interact with her or make sure she's having fun of any kind.

She made less noise last night without the hut but I believe she's been messing with one of her toys. That's the only progress so far. She's still regurgitating on her seed bowls.

[Wolf]

Well, not to be rude, but many of us have our own issues as well, some are emotional, psychological, physical or mental. This is not meant badly, but just as a reminder that you are not alone and that although the forum is not the ideal place to discuss them some of us are willing to talk with each other about these problems through the PM function. While I am not a female and therefor not the most informed about some of the issues that you may be facing, You can always PM me to discuss anything that you want or need to. I don't always know any answers, but I can listen.

Back onto your birds. I am not sure what to say about the dogs, 8 is quite a few of them and they are always much braver when they have such a pack as this. What kind of dogs are they? I currently have three dogs, one boxer and two that are large mixed breeds. The two of them are brothers and appear to be a Labrador and beagle mix primarily and both of them weigh nearly 100 pounds each and are about 3 years old while the boxer is about 2 years old and she weighs about 55 pounds. I also have 7 cats living in the house most of them are around 10 years or older although I saved one of them as a baby from the boys when it climbed a tree and fell into their pen, he is about 2 years old now. All of these live with the birds so I have to put the dogs and cats out in their pens when I let the smaller birds ( parrotlets and budgies) out. The small birds have more of a fluttering sound to their flying than the larger birds which causes the dogs to focus on them too much.

With all of that being said, I know that your budgies are safer by far in your room than in the same room as your dogs. Fawkes, I can't really say, because I don't know what she sounds like when she flies, but if it is more of a fluttering sound than individual wing beats, then she is probably much safer in your room as well. Do you have the means to put all of the dogs outside or to keep them out of any of the other rooms in the house? If so then there may be a way for Fawkes to come out of your room part of the time and to learn to socialize with other humans part of the time.

I think that I can help you with your birds so that both you and they can have a more rewarding experience with each other, mostly by doing more things together. To that end I will definitely have lots of questions as well as make suggestions about helping you to maybe taming you budgies a bit more and finding things that you and Fawkes can do together. Since you are there most of the time I would start working on this regurgitation issue as if it is possibly a combination of hormones and behavioral issues. Although I would not rule out any possible medical factors without consulting with a vet, there is probably a very good chance that by altering their daily schedules and perhaps their diets that we can over a period of time bring this under control.

To begin with, I would like to know how her wing has healed and ask if she is able to fly at all, it does not sound as if she can fly or at least doesn't fly very well, so an update on this would be very helpful. Also very useful would be knowing the times that all of your birds are getting up in the mornings and when they go to bed. This is due to the fact that all of them are photoperiodic, which means that a large portion of their reproductive cycles and hormone production is controlled and influenced by the light that they receive. Then please add in a detailed description of what their diet is as well as when they get what foods. Again this can also affect their breeding cycles as having an abundance of certain types of food is needed for them to produce the hormones as well as being needed to ensure that they can raise their babies. So food is also a trigger for breeding and nesting behaviors. What are they types of toys that you have for them to play with?

I know that I will probably have loads more questions about them, but other than the questions that I have just asked, they are not the most important to me at this time. You can save me a lot of questioning by simply talking to me about your birds. You are my only eyes and ears into the world that you share with your birds and although I am here primarily for your birds benefit, you are just as important and I think that you need to know this and over time begin to see me as your friend as well. That is how I would like you to talk to me about your birds, as if you considered me to be your friend, who shares a strong interest in parrots with you. Pictures of your birds would prove helpful if you can post them.

[Chantilly]

Hi lizarosco, I found this while 'surfing the web'.
Although it would be very hard to clean, I think this would be much safer than the snuggle hut, it is a Seagrass version. http://store.birdiebitsnbites.com/catal ... -1457.html
Although it is'nt necessary, if you ever wanted to get Fawkes another hut, I don't think this one would be pretty safe.

(I hope it is ok that I am posting this, I'm not trying to advertise, just thought it would be helpful)