Your Parrot and Hormones: 5 Ways to Help your Feathered Companion

Hi Everyone! We just wanted to share this informative article: Your Parrot and Hormones: 5 Ways to Help your Feathered Companion


Am I posting this in the correct section? any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Chris
Bird Street Bistro

Hello!

Over all, pretty good, though much of the same stuff you see recommended repeatedly.

What really irks me about conversations surrounding hormones (not singling you out, speaking generally) is 1) the failure to draw a distinction between puberty and annual hormones, and 2) the failure to distinguish between annual hormones and induced hormones.

Both are critical but most particularly item 2 is what will Do the most service to new owners. Eclectus being a prime example. Eclectus lack a breeding season, they can breed all year long. Meaning they can be induced to hormones almost immediately by 1) inappropriate touching, 2) excess sugar in the diet, 3) use of hemp seeds in the diet, to name a few known triggers.

You wanna write a helpful blog about handling hormones that distinguishes itself? Don’t oversimplify the situation like everyone else does. Hormones aren’t just hormones.

Just throwing out advice like this without any context (again, it’s not just you, it’s EVERY conversation I’ve ever seen on the topic - you just get the brunt since you wanted to debut this ) does the reader a disservice since hormones are far more complex than this. Its most helpful to clarify just who will benefit from these recommendations and to what degree. People with inducible species will see much greater consistent result than with an amazon. The amazon will be hit or miss and much more individualized since you can’t stop seasonal hormones.

Thanks!


It is a good list and it is visually pleasing .

It might seem elementary to people who frequent this forum a lot (and some of us do preach about this stuff like broken records), but there are still near-daily posts about behavioral problems that could be avoided if every bird owner read this list fully lol. I agree that you should address "cuddles", stroking etc and explain that petting on the head and neck are really the only safe places (no matter how innocent and loving it seems)...


Lots of the birds that people love so much on Instagram are actually broody messes waiting to happen.

Things you might add:
Warm/squishy foods that mimic regurgitation are often a trigger.
10-14 hours of sleep is essential to regulating hormones and the immune system.
You should absolutely add "egg-binding" (in females) to the list of consequences for hormonal behavior (as it is common and can be deadly)

chris-md - Thank you for going in depth. We appreciate your input. We love hearing back from bird parents and their thoughts concerning what information is out there and what SHOULD be out there. Much appreciated.

noodles123 - Thanks noodles, that was our goal! To make the information easy to understand to bird parents who are unaware. In this case, most of our forum friends are very knowledgeable!

We love to receive feedback like Noodles and chris-md. We will have to dive deeper for part 2!

Stay tune,

Chris
Bird Street Bistro

Very interesting, and a fun presentation that might be attention-sustaining for new folks!

A brief aside... for hormone-regulation... the most useful tool I've found is light control. I keep my little monster on a natural light schedule: up with the sun, down with the sundown. He has a separate room so that's possible. That way he's only a total maniac during late summer.

Thanks!

Great responses so far.

As pointed out above, there is far more to Hormones than the vast majority of articles cover. With Amazons, not being aware of what triggers Hormones will result in serious bites at any time of the year.

Food: We work at eliminating Sugar from our DYH Amazons diet and that includes Fruits and freeze dried fruits, which should be considered 'treats' provide during a safer time periods. Dealing with surging natural Hormones is a major undertaking in and of itself. Add a 'sugar high' and they can spin-up so quickly that all but a well seasoned owner will get bitten, hard and long. If you are lucky, they may not grind their bill while biting.

Salt has only recently come to light as a trigger. It first came to light when Amazons with a very low to no Sugar diets where still found to be surging beyond what was a 'normal' (dangerous word) Hormonal period. Until further studies are completed, we have targeted vastly eliminating to fully halting it in our Amazon's diet.

Discussions regarding Fat, Protein, and Soy (Pellets) will find long time friends in each other's faces. When the discussion involves Amazons, IMHO aiming at greatly limiting them in the diet is very important as part of their overall health. We activity adjust our DYH Amazons diet based on his blood test results. Thus limiting or eliminating the percentage of pellets, eliminating peanuts and sun flower seeds in the diet.

Sleep has been long found to be a major problem with bring on out-of-season Hormonal surges with Amazons. The goal of a 12 to 14 hour sleep pattern is to limit or eliminate a Hormonal response anytime during a one year cycle. That normally results in a Hormonal crazed Amazon at anytime the sleep pattern is not followed. I have been a long time believer in this approach until I took a very open and honest look at what Amazons in their natural ranges where experiencing. As a result, we have moved to the same wake /sleep schedule as the Sun each day of the year. This means that our Amazon will be a Hormonal monster in later Winter /early Spring and a happy camper the balance of the year.

FYI: This is working with our Amazon, whether it will or will not with other species is yet to be seen.

Amazons can be spun into a Hormonal 'event' (per your article) by improper handling of an Amazon. Too much of a good thing in the wrong place and one will find their Amazon surging Hormones and removing fingers, other body parts and /or high value face, neck, ear parts and other things.

Amazons enjoy Active Play, but their tendency of becoming overly excited will shift them into a full-on Hormonal event in a flash.

Clearly this does not go into great deal in each area, but it provides a clear picture of just how easy it is to create a Hormonal Amazon at anytime of the year or day.

Combine several of the above and an Amazon could loss its home. The sad reality is that as noted, we have control over the vast majority of the above.