Extremely randy and possibly jealous ?

Hello ,
I have a bit of a problem or should I say my husband might ... and help much appreciated as it might now be getting out of hand.
We got our 2nd ekky Marlie about 5 or 6 months ago , he is almost 2 1/2 yrs old. We already have Jack who is just a touch over 2 1/2 yrs old, there is 2 months difference.
We have had Jack since he was 14 weeks old and Marlie as I mentioned close on 6 months ago we got him.
Ever since we got Marlie , he has always tried to have his way with my husband, every second that he can , he is all over my husband. Kisses him, regurgitates food for him and so on. We were hoping this would subside. Im their main carer. Marlie was very very affectionate and so was Jack.
They got along , just , at times would feed each other , chase each other and also fight, we always supervised them together.
Separate cages etc , nothing shared.
It seems this affection toward my husband has now all of a sudden happened with Jack and my hubby. Recently it started up that Marlie wouldnt let Jack close to my husband , it was a no go zone if he got a certain distance. Just recently if I tried to remove him from my husband , either for bed or anything else , he would start growling and attempt to bite and so my hubby most of the time would take him to his cage.
But during the day my birds were quite fine and playful with me.
My husband went away this past week , upon coming back , Jack now wants to be with my hubby and has become a little aggressive, wont let me pick him up as easily as I used to and keeps trying to go to my hubby.
Some places such as my bed after a shower , I would place them to run around. Now Marlie seems to want to conquer this area and in the last 2 days has lashed out when trying to move him outside my bedroom, today my hubby had to come and get him and he quite happily hopped onto his hand.
Tonight was the last straw for me... especially since they are my parrots and Jack I have had since a baby ...
We were putting them both to bed and my hubby said " u might want to put a little more food in marlies dish, so I added a bit of apple and carrot for the night. Went to take the dish back , he lashed out and growled and wouldnt let me go near his cage, he has NEVER done this before. Was quite scared that he became soooo aggressive toward me. Was upset and hubby said walk away and leave it for now, light was off and they were covered.
He went about 10 minutes later and put the dish in his cage and walked off.
I give them both equal attention. I have now started about 1 week ago to give them each one on one attention , while one is in his cage and I give the other attention in another room. They seemed to really enjoy play time with me on their own away from the other and I also have them together during the day too.
Now they are growling at me and seem to be fighting over my husband.
Jack a very long time ago , was acting this way but it passed very very quickly and I just assumed it would be again. But for Marlie it has never disappeared and its come back with Jack.
Im a bit worried in the morning now getting them out without getting angry at me, especially after tonight Marlie being super aggressive when trying to put his dish back.
Im a little scared to handle them both, but try not to show it as I dont want them thinking they are in charge or dominant. Why has Marlie never left my husband alone ? Marlie's previous owner was a male about the same age as my hubby and I have no idea of what went on with him, never asked as we thought it would pass and we are no longer in contact with previous owner, nor do I want to contact him.
Its sounding like some sort of jealousy , Im the "other woman " and they want my hubby. How do I fix this , especially since Im with them all the time and hubby isnt.
Help please ..........

Robyn,I am more interested in your reaction to both your birds when they lunge & growl at you. Also what time do they go to bed at night.

If i were in the same position I would ask my hubby to immediately remove the bird from him & put it in it's cage. From what i see the behavior of both your birds are being incouraged. If any bird growls at me i growl back & tell them NO.

If any of my birds show any sign of trying to feed or mate with my hand they are immediately removed from me & are placed either on the stand or back in the cage. All my parrots are put to bed as the sun goes down & are covered until morning. I limit my handling at these hormonal times but have them hang out with me not on me.

Also you might consider putting both boys on a maintenance diet. Most eclectus owners feed their birds as i would my breeding pairs. In other words keep their males in breeding condition all year, one reason why males can & do become aggressive once they mature. Another recommendation would be to cut out the sunflower seed. Some say to much can cause eclectus to be agro. So a diet of fresh fruit & veggies plus a few seeds, some sprouts & raw nuts would be a much better diet than all the cooked mushy foods, I know intentions are good but spare a thought for the birds they really don't need all the foods we give them unless they have a hen & babies to feed.

Robyn i would limit the time the birds spent with hubby, no petting what so ever & as soon as they show signs of inappropriate behavior your hubby is to remove them immediately not you. If the pair start any funny business with you do the same.

This behavior has never been encouraged, Marlie has done this since we got him but it just slowly intensified, we thought this would go away as Jack did this long ago.
We don't really know what it was like for Marlie at his old home but the wife hated him.
I would tell my hubby to remove him every time but never too far. Marlie can't fly and has had his wings clipped since he was 5 weeks old.
It is very easy to remove Marlie and place him elsewhere but now that Jack is doing this he takes off and runs and it is harder to get Jack. But not really difficult, Marlie can just be placed on his play stand and removed from being close to my hubby.
I even considered clipping Jacks wings ( which I'm against ) only because I find it easier to handle Marlie, but I am really against clipping.
Marlie was a screamer, Still does at times but we do ignore it . There has been a rare occasion when its difficult to ignore so we place him on his cage or in another room on his playstand and shut the door for a few minutes without any interaction or attention of ny sort. Screaming is one of the reasons his previous owner gave him up. He doesn't like being in his cage lately so whilst being placed lately has started to lunge.
I think he was always been on his play stand at the previous house.that's what the guy told me, he didn't have much time for him but was always outside his cage on his play stand most likely screaming forvattention as he had other birds, onevwas flying around the house.
During one on one time, I can take Marlie outside in my front yard and he loves running through the grass, previous owner never let him on the grass. I take him outside on his play stand while I hang washing out, he loves that. But as for jack, I can't do any of that, he can only come outside in his cage, he has a harness but hates it.
So I also wonder what he thinks being in his cage whilst Marlie is sometimes on his, only sometimes.
I don't feed them much seed at all, especially sunflower. I give raw nuts maybe twice a week including seeds.
They get fresh fruit and veggies every day, lots of yellow and greens, chilli, corn etc.
They are both easier to handle when hubby isn't here and almost back to being my old birds.
I will have to really limit hubby's time with them and really be firm, just harder with jack as he flies to him whereas Marlie can't.
But hubby has limited them especially Marlie being on him. But Marlie just wasn't removed too far. But dont get me wrong, although this all sounds really bad, he is still a beautiful bird and we both love them booths to bits. Just can't continue with this biting frenzy toward me especially when they are mine and I'm the one with them everyday.
Thanks.

All I can say is that when I watched Barbara Heidenreich's videos she said that this used to happen with a certain male cockatoo. What they would do is every time the cockatoo began to regurgitate for one person, they would eliminate that person from the bird's daily activities for awhile. So, this would be my suggestion. Keep your husband out of direct contact with them for awhile. At first they will be mad, but just ignore their aggressive behavior and reward ANY positive behavior. If you have to keep either one in their cage for awhile, so be it. They just need time to get over this hormonal stage. Eventually they will come out of it. But by continuing to let your husband handle the birds, they are getting what they want, and therefore their aggressive behavior is being rewarded. Good luck!

Well, got them out this morning. Different birds from last night when they wanted to bite me and Marley in his attack from his cage last night.
So different from last night, I do have Jack fly to my shoulder often, Marlie sometimes I place there. But I think because I'm now a little more frightened of them , this is going to stop. Will be rare that they are on my shoulder and I think this should be earned and considered a privilege to be there, same as my hubby.
I place both this morning on their play stands , moved Jack to our front door as he likes to sit on a side cabinet there and talk to anything that moves outside our front door, so this time I put the play stand right at the doorway and he was quite happy to talking his head off, but oftens flies off to remove ornaments from my other cabinet there, but he kept going back to the playstand.
Marlie I had on his play stand near me while I was in the kitchen, he was very talkative today , I would just go past say a few things to him and kiss his beak, he seemed so opposite of last night.
I cleaned out their cages , did some food and returned them to their cages without a single lunge or attack. I made sure that
Marlie could see food going into his cage, as he had only just started lunging at me when I would put him in his cage. Hubby said this morning , just make sure he sees food going in and he will be happy to get in, he loves his food.
There will be no more shoulder rides, I sort of understand what I need to do, just putting it into practice and sticking to it with the amount of handling of Marlie and just starting this one on one time with each of them I think is a good thing to try and curb any jealousy.
I had 3 kids in 2 yrs and 5 months and to me it is sort of working with children and being 1 step ahead of them.
I am taking back over before I commit hurry curry

I found this link that may interrest anyone with birds displaying mating behavior.

Hope it gives some insight into understanding why.

Site Name - Articles - Behavioral - Sex And The Psittacine

Maybe this will help.

Thank you for the link, will take a look at this.
Since my last post I have told my husband that his interaction with the birds has to be very minimal.
I used to let Jack on my shoulder a lot and he would also fly there, i have had him over 2 yrs. I'm now going to really minimize this and yesterday and today I had them out separately. It has been better than what has been happening these past few weeks.
Hopefully fingers crossed things go back to normal, thank you for the other posts.
May take some time , we do not know fully what Marlies previous home life was like but I do know he had him on his play stand a lot but didn't have time to interact with him. So he isn't keen being in the cage when required.
This will sort out, just got to make sure that minimal contact is kept with hubby.
Thanks

I have just read the link and it is very very informative. I have done the wrong thing myself in hugging my birds, it is so easy to want to do that. I have to keep reminding myself they are not like cats and dogs.
This link has helped a lot and can understand pretty much how it can go haywire.
Thanks