Oh, my sweet Galah Rose.. She's making me blush!

So, miss Rose has been cagebound since we got her from an abusive home, just under a year ago. She will give kisses and clean my teeth. She also grooms my hand. She does it all from the safety of her cage. My cousin came over for dinner last week. I introduced him to Rose, and they both fell in love. Rose was just talking and talking with him.
My cousin offered her his hand to step up. She was very excited but very hesitant. She stepped up with one foot. It took about 10 minutes, but she finally put both feet on my cousin's hand. We softly cheered. However, as soon as he attempted to remove her from the cage, she jumped off his hand. So, then I tried. Same response. So far, she has continued to step up, but not going out and I'm totally ok with that. Just a little longer. There is one little side bar to this. When she puts one foot on my hand, or my cousin (especially my cousin) she puffs up her chest and begins to wiggle her butt. We were told that she is about 4 years old. Now, I'm not sure exactly what this is. I think I know and it's making me blush just a bit. Would she be entering puberty at this age? Has she decided that my cousin and I are suitable suitors? Is that why she has suddenly made this huge leap towards exiting her cage, finally? What on earth do I do?

Sarah, I do not recommend allowing Rose access to your mouth... the bacteria in our mouths can make our birds sick.

Is Rose making contact with anything when she wriggles her butt? She's not shaking her tail feathers is she? Are we sure Rose is a female?


It's hard to say why she has decided to change her behavior, but it sounds like she likes something about your cousin.

PrincessSarah said:

So, miss Rose has been cagebound since we got her from an abusive home, just under a year ago. She will give kisses and clean my teeth. She also grooms my hand. She does it all from the safety of her cage. My cousin came over for dinner last week. I introduced him to Rose, and they both fell in love. Rose was just talking and talking with him.
My cousin offered her his hand to step up. She was very excited but very hesitant. She stepped up with one foot. It took about 10 minutes, but she finally put both feet on my cousin's hand. We softly cheered. However, as soon as he attempted to remove her from the cage, she jumped off his hand. So, then I tried. Same response. So far, she has continued to step up, but not going out and I'm totally ok with that. Just a little longer. There is one little side bar to this. When she puts one foot on my hand, or my cousin (especially my cousin) she puffs up her chest and begins to wiggle her butt. We were told that she is about 4 years old. Now, I'm not sure exactly what this is. I think I know and it's making me blush just a bit. Would she be entering puberty at this age? Has she decided that my cousin and I are suitable suitors? Is that why she has suddenly made this huge leap towards exiting her cage, finally? What on earth do I do?

Click to expand...

Hi well done on giving Miss Rose a new home. Have you a playstand that she could reach from the open door of her cage? It might encourage her to come out under her own steam and build confidence. If you sit nearby but dont appear to take any notice if she does start to come out. Plum will sometimes do what I call a waggle dance on my hand, it looks like he's trying to do the hokey cokey lol. I dont take any real notice of this as it doesnt progress unless it goes on a bit and then just distract him. As previously mentioned please dont allow your bird access to your mouth/saliva - it's not worth the risks. If you find some of her behaviour unwanted calmly return her to the perch and start again - they're smart and will cotton on. Good luck with her and enjoy

Are you sure she wasn't just shaking her tail? All of mine do that as a sort of transition thing, like, Okay, I'm finished preening/eating/pooping, now on to the next thing. As for getting her to come out, it might help if you make a habit of sitting nearby with something really yummy to eat, and pretending you don't see her. Sooner or later, she's going to come demand her fair share.

As a general rule, I don't let her in my mouth. It hurts. I just know that she'll do it. She tries a lot. When she's doing the butt wiggle thing, she is kind of rubbing on the perch at the same time. We don't know for sure that she's a girl. She has not been DNA sexed. We are going off the color of her eyes and previous owner's statement. I'm not even for sure of her age. I eat next to her daily. She has zero interest in people food. None. I. fact, she's scared of it. We have a perch, but she's scared of that too.

She is an incredibly shy Bird. She is terrified of anything outside her cage. It's heartbreaking. I don't know what has been done to her. But whatever it was, it was awful.

So she has red eye coloration?


Have you tried sprouted seeds? Or finely chopped vegetables mixed into some healthy, cooked rice? And feeding these first thing in the morning before any other foods?


It's possible that nothing was done to her. Sometimes, even the best, well cared for galahs can freak out over the slightest little thing, and due to their fear, they become "neurotic". They can associate their fear with humans, which then makes them fearful of humans and it just gets worse. It's not common, but it's not the first I've heard of a galah being fearful. (other birds can be, as well)

She won't even eat millet spray if she sees us put it in her cage. My husband is double checking her eyes now. Its pretty subtle, so it's hard to tell. I've put several different treats in her bowl, when she's not looking. She avoids her bowl. Eventually, she'll build up enough courage to attack the offending item and throw it out of her bowl. You almost can't see it unless you get real close. There is red coloring.

Also, her previous owners were tweakers. They told us about hitting the cage with a stick to make her come out.

What is Rose's diet?


From the sounds of it, what you think of as a treat she does not.

She was on seed. However, she's now on pellet. She loves the pellet. I've tried to add a variety of different fruits and veggies. The only other thing I've found that she likes is sweet tea and fried egg. I feel like tea wouldn't be good for her and she only ate the egg because it was dark and she couldn't tell where it was coming from. I put it in her bowl and she threw it out. I offered it between the bars without making eye contact in the dark and she ate it up.

She was on seed, but recently, I switched her to pellet. She loves it. I've tried a variety of fruits and veggies. The only thing I've found that she likes is sweet tea and fried egg. I feel like tea wouldn't be good for her and she only ate the egg because it was dark and she couldn't tell where it was coming from. I offered it between the bars without making eye contact in the dark. She's ate it up. When I put it in her bowl, she threw it out.

Oops. Sorry for the double post.

Ok, so she was on a seed diet and is now eating pellets. Great job converting her!




Now, have you ever tried using seeds or nuts as treats?

I have a U2 who was exposed to drug use. I don't know that he was abused, but he was definitely neglected.

We thought Sucre was a female too, initially. He's not. He was allowed free roam of the filthiest house you've ever seen, his cage wasn't even assembled, they had to find the pieces for us.

He isn't afraid of anything, so that hasn't been a problem for us, but he has had some behavior / aggression issues, directed mostly towards me, as he has fallen in love with my husband. Our vet told us that it may take some time for his behavior to level out so that we can know what to expect from him. The drug we suspect was methamphetamine - paraphernalia was all over the house when we picked him up, and the owners had meth sores on them. There's no telling what he's seen and been exposed to.

It's up to us to show them how their lives should be.

Sounds like she's making

Similar situation with Rose. Being in recovery myself, I know a tweaker when I see one. They were definitely tweakers. As it turns out, all Rose needed was a little more time. I'm recovering from surgery, so haven't been able to put in as much effort as I'd like. My husband, however, had picked up my slack. Today he stood at Roses cage and simply held his arm in one position. Rose, after almost a half hour, stood on his hand. Then, suddenly, she climbed up his arm, out of her cage. She went to his shoulder (yes, we know this isn't advised, but we weren't stopping her) and gave him kisses. She them flew from his shoulder to the bed, got scratches and loves from me. Then she flew to the floor. She walked around a bit, climbed my conures cage then walked back to her cage and climbed back in. Huge progress. I guess she was ready!

That is huge progress! Do you know how old she is, or did I miss that?

Sucre is 6 years old. Our vet told us that it may take as much time to undo the damage caused by his former family as it did to cause the damage. Our biggest problems with Sucre at this point in time is that he does not realize he needs to go into his cage at all. And, after having free roam of a house for who knows how long, I don't blame him. We have other birds that we need to spend one on one time with, they are still young and I have just finished hand raising them. Plus we have two little dogs inside who are terrified of Sucre after being chased through the house by him a few times. And, we both work 40+ hours a week...All our free time is devoted to the animals, it seems, but for Sucre, sometimes it isn't enough.

He also went through a phase of attacking me for about a week, we knew nothing about big birds and didn't realize it was mating season and we made some mistakes and he bonded heavily with my husband. I've had to work hard to develop a better relationship with him, even though I'm still a little bit afraid of him - he got me pretty good a couple of times! That's why we had his wings clipped last week, so I can at least out run him. But he became so angry at the vet that he decided I was pretty much okay, and we seem to have reached a truce.

I think we have to have a lot of patience with them! But sometimes I get the impression that Sucre thinks the same thing about me!

PrincessSarah said:

Similar situation with Rose. Being in recovery myself, I know a tweaker when I see one. They were definitely tweakers. As it turns out, all Rose needed was a little more time. I'm recovering from surgery, so haven't been able to put in as much effort as I'd like. My husband, however, had picked up my slack. Today he stood at Roses cage and simply held his arm in one position. Rose, after almost a half hour, stood on his hand. Then, suddenly, she climbed up his arm, out of her cage. She went to his shoulder (yes, we know this isn't advised, but we weren't stopping her) and gave him kisses. She them flew from his shoulder to the bed, got scratches and loves from me. Then she flew to the floor. She walked around a bit, climbed my conures cage then walked back to her cage and climbed back in. Huge progress. I guess she was ready!

Click to expand...

Hi that's great news I'm really pleased for you. Have a speedy recovery.

We're honestly not sure how old she is. I think she's young, maybe 4-6 years. Her eyes look young. Once we get her really comfortable coming out, I'll get her to the vet. We'll have her DNA sexed, nails trimmed and hopefully get an idea of how old she is.

Avian vets can't guess a bird's age to an exact. A healthy, old bird can look just as young as a bird only a few years old!


It's great you are making progress with her!