Any one else's female driving them nuts?

c3honey84 · Sep 1, 2012

Roxy is driving me crazy! She will not sit still. If I leave her cage door open like I usually do, she tries to get behind the cage, which she can't because it is against the wall. Then she crawls to the bottom on the outside and tries to eat the paint off of the baseboard. If I take her out of the cage and she is on my arm, she keeps trying to eat my shirt, and then my necklace, and then bite my arm. It must be the full moon! Also, when she tries to eat my shirt, it's not just a chewing thing. She aggressively attacks it with this head banging thing. I have seen her do this to several things in the past few days including my leg. What the heck is she doing?

Chikoo · Sep 1, 2012

Maybe you need to give her some more things to chew on!

headfeathermistress · Sep 1, 2012

When I saw the topic I thought wives or birds?
:20:

lene1949 · Sep 2, 2012

LOL... I was just thinking.... YES! my daughter! She wanted me to come to the market with her - and after that going furniture shopping... She couldn't find what she wanted... I ended up paying for lunch and petrol and in addition to that I bought $300 worth of stuff... Things I couldn't live without.... BUT ... if I hadn't gone out with her, I still would have had no idea, I couldn't live without these things...

mrob · Sep 2, 2012

all sounds like totally normal behaviour to me....
maybe try some more toys. dried pasta spirals keep my eccie busy

c3honey84 · Sep 2, 2012

She has a ton of toys, and I change them all of the time. She has never done any of this before. Just the past few days. I guess trying to climb down her cage and stuff is normal, but as far as the aggressive head banging thing, I can't hold her anymore because she hurts me when she does it. She also is aggressively attacking my clothing when I'm wearing it. What am I supposed to do, hold her naked? lol And when she does try to climb down off her cage, I will go over and ask her to step up so I can put her back on top of the cage but she bites me. HARD.

Chikoo · Sep 2, 2012

Have you tried starting over with her, and taking her a treat when you want her to step up? Helping to associate positive things with it again? Try using your arm instead of your hand too. Sometimes I have to do that when my female is too excited or in a funny mood. But I try to maintain hand control as much as possible, I just also know when to back off! She might just be getting hormonal. Have you tried keeping her cage covered for 12 hrs?

c3honey84 · Sep 2, 2012

I always use my arm because she is not too familiar with stepping up on a hand. I guess I will have to try back tracking and starting over with step ups again. I just don't know what to do when she is on the outside of her cage and bites me. How can I punish this behavior? I can't just put her back in her cage because to do that I would have to grab her off of the outside of the cage and risk serious bite injuries. What I have been doing is just not letting her climb all over her cage. I just put her on her tree stand. I just feel bad doing that. I'm 90% sure it's hormones. She has been spending a lot of time on the bottom of her cage lately.

Boysmom · Sep 5, 2012

My girl has been displaying some of this behaviour also. She just seems outright hyper. She has been beating her beak in an attack method on her play top and java tree. She has been a bit nippy, and has just become flighted as her clip has grown out. We cant seem to keep her on her cage as she just flies right off, sometimes crashing, as she has never been flighted. She had begun nesting behavior on our sofa, hence she isnt allowed on the sofa anymore right now. I found an article that I believe explains alot of this.
http://www.birdtricks.com/blog/seasonal-behavior-in-parrots/

c3honey84 · Sep 5, 2012

Boysmom said:
My girl has been displaying some of this behaviour also. She just seems outright hyper. She has been beating her beak in an attack method on her play top and java tree. She has been a bit nippy, and has just become flighted as her clip has grown out. We cant seem to keep her on her cage as she just flies right off, sometimes crashing, as she has never been flighted. She had begun nesting behavior on our sofa, hence she isnt allowed on the sofa anymore right now. I found an article that I believe explains alot of this.
http://www.birdtricks.com/blog/seasonal-behavior-in-parrots/

Yes the beak beating thing! That's exactly what it is. She does it to my leg sometimes and it hurts! Thanks for the article. It is weird that she didn't display this behavior in the spring at all.

c3honey84 · Sep 5, 2012

She also has been screaming for me when I leave the house. I don't know how to fix this behavior because I'm not there when she does it!

Boysmom · Sep 6, 2012

My girl was just a baby in the spring so she didnt display any of this behaviour either. From what I have read the spring may be worse than the fall season change on our birds. I certainly hope not. I put a loofa on her play top perch( cut out the middle stuff of loofa and slide it over perch ) and now she just attacks it. I was worried she would break her beak she was beating it so hard. She still tries the beak beating on the cage some. I gave her some extra finger traps and shreding toys to occupy her also. Yesterday I hung some kale leaves around her cage and java tree and she tore them to pieces but did less beak beating. Today she is getting a fresh eucalyptus branch from my moms tree to distract her. She loves climbing on them and shreding the bark and leaves. I guess we just gotta keep them distracted more. Try leaving the tv on a cartoon channel when you are away, maybe that would occupy her. We have done that and then set up a video camera and caught Ruby imitating the cartoons. She learned the penguin sounds from my son watching mr poppers penguins repeatedly.

c3honey84 · Sep 13, 2012

I am getting really upset because my boyfriend is telling me to get rid of Roxy. He loves her too but he is home all day now because he just had back surgery and he tells me that she screams all day for me. Now when I'm home, I can't even go upstairs to take a shower or to get something because as soon as she sees me walk up the stairs, she thinks I'm leaving and screams. I can't hold her on the couch because the first thing she tries to do is climb off me and try to get under the pillows and blanket to try and make a nest. And now she is toe tapping. All of these things put together is making me very stressed out.

Oh, and when my boyfriend is here and I'm at school, when he gets up from the couch and goes into the kitchen, she screams. Sometimes he will be directly talking to her and she will just scream.

MollyGreenCheeks · Sep 13, 2012

Clearly female birds and women have too much in common.. Glad I my babies DNA's resulted in "male"! Hell yeah I'm bitter!

Chikoo · Sep 13, 2012

c3honey84 said:
I am getting really upset because my boyfriend is telling me to get rid of Roxy. He loves her too but he is home all day now because he just had back surgery and he tells me that she screams all day for me. Now when I'm home, I can't even go upstairs to take a shower or to get something because as soon as she sees me walk up the stairs, she thinks I'm leaving and screams. I can't hold her on the couch because the first thing she tries to do is climb off me and try to get under the pillows and blanket to try and make a nest. And now she is toe tapping. All of these things put together is making me very stressed out.

Oh, and when my boyfriend is here and I'm at school, when he gets up from the couch and goes into the kitchen, she screams. Sometimes he will be directly talking to her and she will just scream.

Have you tried giving her Pluck No More? It has a lot of Bach flower essences and chamomile and other such herbs that help to relieve stress, and keep a bird calm. Many have reported behavior issues with screaming going away with it. It's worth a try! Or you could just give her chamomile tea everyday, and see if it cools her down.

Birdlover11 · Sep 13, 2012

These behaviors or just normal mating behaviore, she's thinking a big junky hunky birdy is going to march into the house and is going to have babies with her!lol,I would reccomend getting a doggy treat ball that is smaller and put fruits,veggies and her favorite treats in thier so while your at school she could focus on trying to roll and get the treats out of the ball. Also give her some phone books to shred and squeeze fruits into spaces in the cage, I do that for my budgies before I go to school and it takes them an hour to get them out! Frozen ones are better.

c3honey84 · Sep 14, 2012

I know that the searching under pillows and blankets is normal mating behaviors, but I didn't think the screaming was. But what do I do about the screaming whenever I leave the room? one time her cage was covered for the night and she screamed because she heard me go up the stairs!

Pedro · Sep 14, 2012

This is one of the reasons why i don't like selling hens for companions. Most carers don't understand what is going on or even how to fix things. So unfortunately the bird is passed on.

You can start by making sure she is healthy, get your vet to check her over again. Just some simple tests to make sure she hasn't a gram bacteria. If you think this behaviour is out of character. I don't have this problem with my girls.

Then address the diet, when hens become mature it's a good idea to keep the diet at a maintenance level. Most eclectus carers keep their birds in top breeding condition by offering warm cooked mushy foods.

This link may give you some insight into what is happening & how you can adjust things.

http://pamelaclarkonline.com/uploads/Hormonal_Behavior.pdf

Devann · Sep 14, 2012

my female alexandrine is acting crazy too! Pretty sure it's hormones and hoping it will pass... she screamed at my husband all day long the other day when he was home without me too. She's fine if i'm in the room but she's also been doing her "horny pose" that her previous owner described to me from time to time...

c3honey84 · Sep 15, 2012

Pedro said:
This is one of the reasons why i don't like selling hens for companions. Most carers don't understand what is going on or even how to fix things. So unfortunately the bird is passed on.

You can start by making sure she is healthy, get your vet to check her over again. Just some simple tests to make sure she hasn't a gram bacteria. If you think this behaviour is out of character. I don't have this problem with my girls.

Then address the diet, when hens become mature it's a good idea to keep the diet at a maintenance level. Most eclectus carers keep their birds in top breeding condition by offering warm cooked mushy foods.

This link may give you some insight into what is happening & how you can adjust things.

http://pamelaclarkonline.com/uploads/Hormonal_Behavior.pdf

I knew all of this was coming when I adopted a female. However, having experience as an animal trainer, I assumed I would be able to extinguish the behavior. I am now frustrated because ignoring the screaming is not working, and neither is rewarding her when she doesn't scream. I have never let her into any area that remotely resembles a nest or dark place. I also hardly ever feed her warm food.

And trust me, I will never give her away. I don't care if she makes my ear drums bleed. I will never be one of those people.

Any one else's female driving them nuts?

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Baby Ekkie Pipping

What kind of Eclectus do you have

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