To nest or not to nest

My female ekkie, Chikoo, is getting hormonal again. I've seen her kick back with one of her legs a few times, once on her boing, and another time just randomly as she was perched. This morning I found her in her cage, standing at the bottom, shredding up her cage liner, which luckily was just changed out last night and was clean. She only sleeps and eats in her cage, so there is nothing between the perch and the bottom of the cage, and no removable tray. I just change out the newspaper frequently, and clean the cage when needed. She is mostly out of the cage during the day.

My wife thinks we should give her a snuggle hut again. She feels that Chikoo might stop plucking her feathers out if we give her a hut, because when she had one, it was as close as she ever got to being fully feathered. Most people advise against giving hens the opportunity to nest, especially if they are to remain as companion parrots.

I don't really know what to do. I know part of the reason it is not advisable is because it will make her hormonal. But from what I can tell, she is already hormonal and frustrated, struggling against her native instincts and biological cycle to nest. She even flew away the other day and spent the night out, until my wife found her in a guava tree the next morning. She does not pose any trouble in being handled, no biting or anything, although she has always been on the nippy side if we try to touch her too much. Lately, she seems less sweet, and just more indifferent, and seems to be going through something.

So the question is whether or not to give her a snuggle hut. What would happen if I gave her one again and let her hang out in there and scratch around inside, and fulfill her instinctual urges? Would she become a monster that I would not be able to handle ever again? I sort of doubt she would, but I have no idea, which is why I am asking. She had one before, when we first got her we gave her one, and she would go in there during the day and scratch around, and play on top of it, and at night she would go inside there once it became dark, and wouldn't come out again until dawn. My first bite from her was when I had to remove her from her hut in the morning, because I was leaving and needed to cage her, so that is my only experience. I would not try to remove her from there ever again!

Let me know any thoughts you all have. We don't feed her a diet that would unnecessarily stimulate her hormones, and we never stroke her back or even touch her much at all except on the top of head, which she just barely tolerates for a few strokes before whipping her beak around. She also gets 12hrs of darkened sleep at night, although I've heard this is irrelevant for ekkies, because they will breed in the winter as well.

You might want to increase her sleeping hours to 14 hrs (no more than 16) when she's moody and down to 9-10 when she's not. Maybe adjust the temperatures as well (or at least allow it to fluctuate with the seasons? - mimic the outside temps if it varies any).

No feeding warm/hot foods. If a high protein diet, may want to cut back on protein (had to do this with a hen of mine that was laying eggs and I needed her to stop so I could put her through surgery - and it worked), maybe lessening the amount of moist foods temporarily, or???

Here's one good article if you haven't seen it yet.
Site Name - Articles - Behavioral - Sex And The Psittacine


On the flip side, you could encourage her to reproduce by giving her a place to lay and allowing her one clutch of eggs. I only know one person who allows her birds to go into egg laying mode while at the same time discouraging the birds from reproducing (i.e. hens not with males, or killing the eggs before they have a chance to lay). I really don't know if it will help.