Odd Behaviors and Snuggle Hut

[liz]

Well I just lost a long post. Long to short. Wolf is right that many of us have problems. I don't have a problem about admitting mine but do have a problem telling why I have PTSD.

Lets talk poop. What does your birds poop look like? Is it even pooping? When my stomach disappeared into my diaphragm (that is another story) I puked constantly. Even my own saliva did not stay down is why I considered an obstruction in it's digestive system. If the vet says he can't find anything wrong then it will probably be an emotional issue.

You are wise to keep them in the safe room. 8 is way to many dogs to watch at the same time to make your bird safe.

I bought an old mobile home with add ons that totals 6 bedrooms. I put a reinforced screen door on one and let me Cockatiels fly free in it while I can still have contact with them. Mine are rescues with bad history so I rescued them just for their sake. Once the are in the flock their history seems to be just that, history. That is the best I can do for them is to let them be happy.
Keep your birdy close to you for his comfort.

If birds do not chew their beaks will grown and then they cannot eat. I started with chop sticks and graduated to wooden spoons both of which are safe for the birds to chew. If I get myself to leave the house I plan to buy untreated wood and make big window sills since that is where they do the most chewing.

I really hope it is not a physical issue. If it is not then the physical and emotional contact will help.

Thinking of you and hope things turn out for you and your birdies.

[Wolf]

Chantilly, that is just like all the rest of us post this type of thing. Great job!

[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)

Edit: I meant I think it would be pretty safe, not I dont think it would be oops
&thanks Wolf

[lizarosco]

Thank you for that. Talking to someone other than my family would be nice, since I no longer have friends. That's why I worry my issues have rubbed off on Fawkes since she's so bonded to me!

Changing topic, I'm going to try to answer all your questions. The dogs are my parents' and older sister's dogs. There's 5 miniature schnauzers, 1 dachshund, and 2 poodles. They're a handful to be sure. They also bark at every noise and it's deafening to hear that constantly. It then makes Fawkes scream and yell out of excitement too. The good thing is that my room is upstairs and the dogs typically stay downstairs all day.

Fawkes' wing is still droopy and I suspect it will forever be. She can not fly at all. She tries hard to jump as far as she can. She even attempts to climb up high on things to get a jump and I almost always realize it and catch her before she hurts herself, but she keeps trying. You can feel where the broken (misaligned) joint is. The vet said its not necessarily broke but that the joint popped up out of place and it's not like you can pop it in because it doesn't work like that.

I tend to stay up late. So I go to bed around 12:30 or 1 am. I cover them at 11:30 but I know they can't be fully sleeping since I'm still up and about. Then I normally wake up at 9:30. Sometimes 10:30 if I'm super tired. That's when I uncover them and change their water, change their seeds/pellets and I give them the fruits/veggies every other day. When I do give them the fruit/veggies, I leave it in for a few hours then take it out and change the water as often as I need to. I leave the seeds/pellets bowl in all day.

The seeds are typically Kaytee brand seeds that I get from petsmart. The pellets are the Roudbush crumbles. The vegetables are a mix of peas, carrots, corn, green beans, Lima beans and then depending on what else is available I provide things like apple, oranges, banana, berries, etc. Loki (my cockatiel) and Sky and Kit (my parakeets) all enjoy millet a few days a week but Fawkes will not eat the stuff. Sometimes I do give them some dried papaya and nuts as treats. These are the more everyday-ish things and anything else are considered the specialties. All of my birds except Fawkes have cuttlebones as well.

The toys are things like those cabob things. The little woodsy chewable things. Popsicle stick stuff, little wood pieces, paper toys, some plastic chewables and for Fawkes leather toys. Before she started chewing on her snuggle hut or on clothes she was obsessed with leather and was going through it like nothing but even though she has a lot in her cage now she doesn't get as crazy over it anymore.

Loki seems very simple and loves his mirror and picking at his millet and toys but he does have a foot fetish which is very weird. Haha. Have to keep feet away from him or he'll try to get on. He is very tame and whistles a lot and can fly but he's a very clumsy flier.

Loki

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The parakeets are not tame but are super playful and in love with each other. They're adventurous and brave little ones and play with every toy I ever buy for them. Sometimes they like to go into loki's cage and take over which he does not appreciate. He's like the grumpy old man that doesn't want the young ones in his lawn but won't harm them or anything.

Kit (female)

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Sky (male)

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And Fawkes is very bonded to me. When I first got her it was with my ex fiance when we lived in Hawaii and we were all pretty happy. She and I were both healthy. She was tame with everyone and bonded to me and fiance at the same time. Then that relationship ended and when I was dating again it took a long time but she warmed up to him. She went from attacking and being territorial to being just as bonded to him. Then that relationship ended and that's where it all went downhill for both of us. It was a bad breakup. Lots of other personal stuff, very long story, and then her issues got worse. She wouldn't accept anyone in my family anymore and become fully bonded to me. She started the regurgitating on her food bowls. She discovered the drawer in my dresser with clothes she completely chewed up to tiny pieces and I felt she shouldn't be in there but I felt bad because it seemed that it was all that she enjoyed so I continued putting old clothes in there so she could chew it up and have a hideout that brought her some cheer since she didn't want toys anymore. Then the regurgitating on her hut started and when the whole seizure thing and getting her wing broken during the checkup happened I felt that she lost the most important happiness which was flying. The regurgitating increased.

Fawkes

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Now in my current relationship she won't attempt to be agreeable. Even though he has come over almost every night and greets her or gives her treats, she won't have it. And now he's getting frustrated that she won't change and he likes to tease her which upsets me and I have him stop. My baby comes first, always.

To answer liz's question, Fawkes is pooping normally. There has not been a change as far as I can tell at all. It is consistent and healthy looking.

I'm sorry if that's a lot. I just feel like I need to explain it all. When I was engaged I had someone to help me look these things up and to help take care of them but since those 2 breakups and living with my parents again and me being jobless and now out of school, I feel so lost in being able to help my babies. I want them to be happy. And I'm glad that Loki, Sky and Kit are doing just fine but Fawkes' issues shadow everything else. She's the love of my life and I have failed her.

Right now I'm grateful for any and all advice. Even criticism, since I know I'm obviously not doing things right. I'm glad to have learned about the seagrass stuff. That helps a lot. And I thank everyone for their advice, I truly do.

[liz]

The criticism in this forum is constructive criticism unless you tweek someone who wants to cause trouble. When I get one of those, which is rare, I just don't respond.

[Wolf]

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions as much of the behaviors now makes sense to me. Your new boyfriend needs to learn to respect Fawkes, which he obviously does not and she is very much aware of this fact and as long as he teases her she will not accept him. I am afraid that his poor behavior will cause her to become even more defensive around him until, especially with hormones running high she will attack him non stop and then if he is there and can't get at him she will try to get you to leave with her by biting you. If she starts doing this behavior, you will at least know why.

Fawkes may be a bit oversensitive to your parents behavior due to the other people that she attempted to bond with leaving her except for you. Your parents nervousness probably stems from them not understanding birds and that is how they express this lack of understanding and Fawkes is an expert at reading body language So she is acutely aware of their discomfort and it makes her uncomfortable to be around them too.

Yes you are making some mistakes with your birds and I mean with all of them, but you are more aware of its effects through Fawkes and as I go through these items you will begin to see why, I hope and if I explain it right.

The two areas that you are making the biggest mistakes and this is very common, is in diet and lighting, both type of lighting and I the schedule that you are keeping them on. Since it is the way that I think, I will give you the problem and its answer then I will try to explain first why it is such a common mistake and why it happens so that you can understand your birds better.

Fawkes is overly hormonal and has been so every since you noticed her regurgitating on things on a regular basis. This also means that all of your other birds are also hormonal, but due to the fact that they are much more of an opportunistic breeder than Fawkes they are not showing it in the same manner. The budgies have each other and don't really care so much as they just play whoopee with each other to relieve the stress. The male sings to the female to get her in the mood for sex. In a similar fashion your male cockatiel is singing for a mate and probably spends a lot of time with the bird in the mirror, which he views as another bird. Fawkes on the other hand has a much more set breeding season and being a single bird does not have a release so she regurgitates, it is what she would do with her mate and for her babies. I would like to ask at this time if Fawkes was DNA tested for her sex because in most species of parrots the male usually regurgitates while the female without babies usually only goes through the motions of regurgitation without the actual food coming up.

Although this last defines the problem, it appears that I have a tendency to try to explain as I go along rather than reserving that totally for the end. OK, I guess I can work with that.

There are several different factors that all come together for birds to enter their breeding cycle, things such as climate and daily weather, which since they are indoor birds and have a good climate and are always warm enough to raise their young the main effect that the weather has is the rainfall outside as it can cause some birds to begin to breed such as cockatiels, but by and large this is not an issue for Fawkes. They need to have a nesting place which is safe and we give them this with their cage. The lack of a nesting box does influence this as do happy huts with birds such as Fawkes thinking of it as a nest although she would be much happier with it if it was darker. This is because baby parrots are helpless and their eyes are very, very sensitive to too much light. This is why they are born in holes in trees and such, and too much light too early can impair their vision for the rest of their lives. We also normally address the requirements of having enough food with our birds having an abundance of food all of the time that they don't even have to work for. These are some of the factors involved that we provide for them just in their everyday maintenance as anything less could be considered to be abusive. But then as you will learn , it is not just the amount of food that we give them it is the types of foods that we give to them that makes diet one of the factors that we can control to help them to not go into breeding condition all through the year and only go through this cycle when they were intended to by nature and the same holds true with the lighting that they receive, with light being perhaps the most influential factor that we have.

Whether we like it or not birds can not adapt to a human light schedule as it throws their internal biological clock out of whack ( not a very scientific term, but accurate ). Birds are photoperiodic, which is just a big word meaning that their life cycles are heavily influenced and controlled by light. If you have ever watched the birds outside or chickens, you will note that they usually start singing and moving about just about the time the sun comes up and that they go to roost just as it is getting dark. That is exactly what our parrots need to do. But there is a part of this that we don't get to see what is happening and that is that our birds and in fact all birds depend on the specific light that occurs in the early morning just about dawn this is a twilight period just before the sun comes up and then just as the sun is going down the light changes again and we call this twilight period dusk. The light at these two twilight period at dawn and dusk is different than any other light due in part to the way it strikes the earth and refracts and they work together to set and reset the birds biological clock which allows them to measure the light and dark periods of the day as well as to track the seasons of the year. This goes down the drain when they are not exposed to the light of both of these times or if they are exposed to them but there is interference from artificial lighting. This in combination with the wrong diet causes them to go into breeding condition and usually get stuck without a way to stop this cycle so they remain hormonal and in breeding condition all year long. The only know cure for this condition is to restore them to their natural light schedules and to correct their diet. I can attest to the fact that this process is a long one and may take the entire year or longer to bring the bird back into sync with the breeding cycle that the bird is supposed to have. Without going into the internal changes that are caused by their exposure to light the summed up version is that the bird needs to be uncovered and near a window so that it can receive the twilight effects and then the bird will wake up just as the sun comes up or just slightly before and then this transitions to full daylight, the bird goes looking for food and water, does a few bird things and then naps during the hot part of the day, wakes up does some more bird things and goes looking for dinner and water returning to its roosting place around dusk and as the sun sets and progresses to full dark the birds drifts off to sleep. This is their natural schedule and is what we as their caregivers need to provide them with for their well being.

Diet is perhaps the most difficult part of caring for our birds as we do not provide a single bird with the same foods as they would have in their natural environment and even if we could do this we don't know how much of what foods they are eating on any given day or season of the year. The best we are able to do at this time is to note a few general trends in their diets. This is partially due to the fact that until sometime in the 1970's there was no money for this type of research and still today there has been very little research into this area and most of what has been done used either chickens or cockatiels for the research. Chickens are not parrots and have different organs than parrots so they digest and use their foods differently than parrots do. Cockatiels were a great step forward, but although they are parrots, there are over 300 different species of parrots with almost as many different diets in the wild, so we still have a long way to go.

Cockatiels and budgies consume more seeds in the wild than most other species of parrots so they do better with more seed in their diet, but they don't eat a lot of mature or dried seeds the primarily eat young immature green grass seeds and leafy green plant matter, these tow species may eat a little bit of fruit but prefer to eat vegetables if we will chop them up small enough for them. They both like to tear off pieces of leaf lettuce hung in their cage and even will bathe on the lettuce leaves if they are laid on the bottom of their cage soaking wet. Still they need fewer seeds than we give them or they fall prey to liver disease or other related diseases. they need a lot of fresh vegetables and fresh raw leafy greens that are also low in iron, partly cooked whole grains, sprouted seeds and grains, fully cooked beans ( no lima beans ) and lentils and just a limited amount of a seed mix. Pellets are not usually recommended for these birds, which works great for me as I don't like pellets.

Fawkes need to have a very similar type of diet but with the addition of a fair amount of fresh raw fruits. Fawkes would normally eat about 30% of her diet in fruits and fresh veggies about 30% partly cooked and or sprouted whole grains about 10% cooked white beans and lentils and then a ration of seeds for dinner.

I have much more information on diets than presented here at this time, but this is getting very long and I am hopeing it will post so I will end this here. Feel free to question further on these topics or any other thing that comes to mind. I will try to give more starting where I have left of in my next post to you.

[lizarosco]

No, Fawkes has not been DNA tested. When she was a few weeks old and we took her to her first vet visit. At that point I referred to her as a him but the vet said they felt her pelvic bones were wide apart and could possibly be female though it was hard to tell without an actual test and since she was still so young.

With the lighting, I feel that will be very challenging since it's my room and the only room I can be at during later hours. I turn the lights on as soon as it gets too dark for me to read so right about sunset. I also use these very dark curtains to block all light out so that I can sleep well. But during the day I have them completely open and with my window being very large and facing a nice meadow and natural environment it lets in a lot of light. The only issue with that is the amount of Hawks and vultures that fly by which cause Fawkes to scream out of fear and then gaze out wide eyed. I think that with being from Hawaii, all the hawks, winter daylight hours, daylights savings time, and overall seasonality here in Texas really have affected a lot of how my birds live now.

I also cover all of the birds every night with large blankets. I always try to block out the lamp light and tv light. Oh and I should definitely mention that we sleep with a night light in the room. I often wonder if that affects my sleep, since I always struggle with sleep, but I started using it a few years ago when Loki kept having night frights that led to broken blood feathers. He was very young when that was happening and I got the light to keep him safe. Now it's only on rare occasions that he will have a night fright. So coming up with a better light schedule seems really challenging.

With the food, I feel I can manage better. Would I need to feed them twice a day then? It's best not to have the food available all day? I guess I'm very curious as to how others' schedules are like and how with jobs and school and such do they manage. Right now I'm lucky to be free to fully concentrate on fixing these issues but I worry about how the changes (once I make them) will keep up once I am busy.

Are there any lists or ways of cooking up food for birds' diets? Most of the time I don't even know what those foods are let alone how to serve them or acquire them. It would be amazing to be able to make these changes for the better.

[Wolf]

I know that these type of changes can be difficult whether one is part of the work force or not, but mostly if you do work a full time job. The birds don't need to be in front of the window to reap the benefits of the light of dawn or dusk, just near enough for them to be able to see it, maybe from off to the sides. The sunlight that could help them to produce vitamin D-3 is filtered by the screens and the window glass itself so the only light coming from the sun that will do them any real good is that of the two twilight periods. The primary reason for their being exposed to this light is to help with keeping their biological clock from running wild and causing them to remain in breeding condition all year long.

Let me give you the reason for this being so important to the birds well being.

Before a bird goes into its breeding cycle its gonads ( sexual organs ), which are all inside of the bird, are about the size of a green pea, this is for a bird the size of an African Grey parrot. When the biological clock signals the pituitary gland that it is the right time of the year to start reproducing, this gland starts producing hormones and signals the rest of the birds body that it is time to gear up for the breeding season and in response sexual hormone production increases and the gonads start receiving a larger blood supply. As a result these gonads begin to grow larger and larger. They will increase in size up to 100 times their dormant size or larger. Even though they are inside the birds body where space is extremely limited, this in it self presents no problem. The hormones that are produced have the effect of increasing the birds aggressiveness, which is also needed as they become more territorial and this serves to help them to protect their nesting site, eggs and babies from other birds or predators. With humans added to the equation this often results in the human receiving more warnings as well as more bites if they do not pay enough attention to the birds warnings, but this is seasonal and subsides when the breeding season passes. This is the normal cycle and is the way things are supposed to occur.

The problem begins when due to the signals being crossed up because of the biological clock running haywire and/ or due to the wrong diet especially one that contains too much protein that the birds body doesn't get the signals to stop producing sexual hormones, ending the breeding season and beginning the cycle of molting. When this happens the bird remains aggressive and the gonads continue to grow, instead of losing its extra blood supply and shrinking back down and becoming dormant until the next breeding cycle. In the beginning this does not present too much of a problem other than the birds remaining more aggressive than normal. But as time passes and these gonads continue to grow the amount of space inside of the birds body becomes smaller and smaller, eventually reaching a point where there is no more room for the gonads to continue to grow. This is when the gonads begin to be squeezed as they place more and more pressure on all of the surrounding organs such as the respiratory system the liver, the kidneys, the heart and whatever these organs also come into contact with as they are pushed further out of their normal spaces. This also causes there to be more internal and external pressure on the birds gonads, which I can assure you from personal experience is quite painful. This increase in pressure and the rising level of pain caused by this continued growth will eventually cause the bird to begin plucking it feathers and self mutilating in an effort to stop the pain and pressure and whit the continued hormonal production added into the mix the bird gets more and more aggressive until the bird can no longer tolerate even the slightest touch from us and the bird become completely untouchable. As long as this situation is not corrected this process continues and will probably result in the birds demise from infections or other causes related to this problem including possible organ failure. Also before the bird reaches this state it is often rehomed many times a being unhandleable or as a biter, when the real problem is that it is suffering from the effects of living at a human light schedule which the bird is incapable of adjusting to.

Yes, making the changes in lighting is difficult and can be very challenging, but you are the one who must decide to do it or not. I can only tell you what I have learned about this and suggest that you do the best that you can to give it a normal birds lighting schedule.

Diet is much easier for me to help you with and I will attempt to do this in my next post. This one is getting long and several of us seem to lose posts when they get long. So I will return with dietary information next.