How long is mating season?

[RisingSun]

.....every time he tries to "get his swerve on." :18:

Hahahaha!! The BEST description. I have a male Ekkie and never has a truer thing been said. Male Ekkies are definitely the Romeo of all parrots. Before I learned more of the evasive techniques mentioned in above posts, it was really bad. Like as soon as I entered the room, he immediately started regurgitating.

I will never forget the time I came home from work exhausted, and fell asleep in the armchair. That was the first time he figured out how to climb a chair. I woke up with my uniform covered in crop goop. He apparently had the time of his life "feeding" the collar of my polo. Good thing I was working in a petting zoo at the time LOL!

 

[chris-md]

Tasha, I would add a bit of shading around all the advice you've gotten here. To be clear we are talking about mature adults, not puberty.

What's not noted here is that ekkies are a bit Unique. They don't have a defined "breeding season". As such they come in and out of major or minor bouts that have varying durations throughout the year.

I've never had Parker stay in a hormonal state for more than 2-3 weeks, and haven't known anyone to be in a hormonal state for a month. His bouts come and go, sometimes they are barely a blip lasting a couple days at most with barely perceptible behavioral change, only noticing by someone who knows him. Sometimes it's full on aggression and masturbation.

Like Stephen noted, it's a ramp up and ramp down. For worst case scenarios, the ramp up lasts maybe a week or so, the full force lasts just a few days to a week at most, and the ramp down about a week, maybe less.

You're mileage may vary. As lordtriggs pointed out, some birds never really become hormonal, others manifest it often. Parker for a while was on a 6 week cycle. Now he's just wildly unpredictable. He just went through an aggressive phase that lasted a couple weeks, and calmed down. As soon as that cooled down, a week later he started masturbaing on a few perches several times a day, and he's still on it.

So with ekkies more so than other birds, ownership is like a box of chocolates, you're going to get it all. You just don't know what you'll eat, and when.

 

[tashawithanekkie]

ah, I see. Duke's nearly 11 so it's not puberty, right? I can't remember what age range right now but I'm fairly certain it was much younger than that.

He seems to be cooling off a bit. I still get some beaky caressing but he will let me change the subject, so to speak, without having too much trouble.

 

[Anansi]

Definitely not puberty at 11.