Need info on mating behavior for GCC

[ATidbit]

I have a GCC that is just under 2. I'm trying to find info on what their mating behavior is so I can recognize it when I see it. We've seen a couple of new behaviors recently and wonder what they are about. This is also my first bird, so I'm still learning what to discourage or allow.

He's done this bobbing thing recently. Not the parrot up and down bob, that's his begging/excited sign. But this is a very fast forward and back of his head. The first time I saw this, I thought there was something wrong. My daughter says with her he keeps fluffing himself up and wagging his tail. I don't believe he is rubbing himself on her. I did see that mentioned a few times as birdy masterbating

He spends most of his time with me even though he was supposed to be my husbands bird. I'm a stay at home mom, so we are just around each other a lot. At night, he likes to cuddle up under my hair and lean or lightly rub on my neck. He only does it for a second or two. Sometimes he sits under my hair for a minute or so without cuddling.

I also read that petting him on his back or under his wings is maybe not a good idea. I had been trying to get him used to being touched. He was hand fed as a chick so very friendly and liked people, but he didn't really like his wings, under his wings, or his tail touched. He would occasionally get kinda mean if you did. I didn't want this behavior, so I made a point to run a finger under his wings, over his wings, down his back every couple of days or so until he got used to it. Now he likes it when I give him a quick pet under a wing. Usually he just raises his wing for a second and then rubs his face on my hand afterwards. Again, he has never tried to "mount" me after petting his wings.

Any thoughts on what each of these mean? And if anyone knows of a site or two that talks about common mating behaviors I would love to know what they are. I didn't find much but individual posts about specific behaviors when I looked. It would be nice to have a place I can go look at when I notice something new instead of having to post every behavior to have it explained to me.

Thanks!

 

[Piasa]

I can only speak to personal experience with male mating behavior with green cheeks.

It does not seem to be confined to mating season, if you give signals or opportunities, he will be sexy.

What Beau does the most often is regurgitate. This is what you are probably seeing with the odd head movements. They will open their beak and kind of roll their neck and crop area in a way that looks very.. uncomfortable? Fast or slow. The food they regurgitate, they will either feed to something (toy, perch) or swallow it again. You can tell the difference between vomiting (serious problem) vs regurgitation by paying attention to what they do with what comes up. Vomit is flung with head shaking, or just falls out of their mouth and drops to the ground. Regurgitated food, they are "giving" to something or someone (or back to themself). They won't try to eat their vomit. If they are vomiting, they probably won't want to eat anything. Also, vomiting just kind of happens - they don't seem to struggle to bring it up like they do when they regurgitate.

Snuggling in the hair on the shoulder and up to your neck is probably just affection. For Beau, it is a sleepy behavior, or if he had a rough day at the vet's office (too often lately).

Sexy posture for him is anchoring both feet spread apart and pushing his groin forward toward object of his affection, then rubbing. He will look like he is standing more vertical when he does this, with head leaning forward.

Another sexy posture, if you are holding your conure and he puffs big and backs his butt up against your hands. Beau closes his eyes and makes a clicky purr noise when he tries this and usually gets angry when I pull away. Best to learn to read your conure so you can tell when he's thinking about this and stop the stimulation before he starts anything.

Petting a bird from neck to tail like you would a cat is giving the signal. Touching anywhere close to their vent is giving the signal. Rubbing their back under their wings, especially low near the tail and preen gland - you are asking for it.

Other potentially sexy signals are touching wings and belly and holding them. I think it depends how you hold or snuggle your bird, and how often you do these things. Snuggling shoulders and head, holding the bird loosely with one hand has never triggered sexy behavior for Beau. This is usually how we snuggle. With time, you will learn with your own bird what they take as companionship and what they take as courtship.

Oh - and one more thing - burrowing. I believe this is a nesting activity. Biting holes in clothing or towels, trying to dig into things like that. Defending Happy Hut type areas, climbing under the sofa or beneath pillows. Beau is so drawn to these activities, but I discourage as they lead to lots of aggressive behavior, damage to things, and are dangerous places for your bird to hide out.

 

[ZephyrFly]

My little GCC (we don't know his gender) gets sexy when there's a fluffy surface. Fluffy blankets and jumpers so far.

 

[Mallory]

Eva is still young, but she has displayed some mating/courtship behaviors. I can't really comment on your bird's because I just haven't met enough conures to say, but I can tell you what Eva does. We believe Eva is a hen which obviously effects her behaviors - we don't see the awkward butt waggle dance like we have been graced with from our male doves in the past.

If we are playing with Eva and she decides it's going in that direction, she will start regurgitating. Then she will hold herself flat, usually in her food bowl where she likes to wrestle, and start twitching her wings and making very distinct vocalizations. She will adopt a posture where her tail sticks straight up and her head is down and act like she is begging for mating. Greenleaf (a confirmed hen) has a very similar mating posture.

For Eva this is kind of random behavior and doesn't seem to be directly from touching her under the wings or on the back. We still wrestle her all over but we mostly cuddle with her head and neck although we keep her comfortable being touched all over. Greenleaf is similar - we can wrestle with her all over when she is playful but when she is being cuddly, she will go into mating behavior if we pet her in those spots.

The head movement you describe sounds like regurgitation. Sometimes when they first try nothing comes up. If you go to youtube and look up parrot regurgitation you will find some videos that show the behavior. It looks about the same in all parrot species. This doesn't sound like your bird, but Eva also does this territorial dance where she will stretch herself as tall as possible and wave back and forth with very exaggerated body language. She only does this to Dillan and if he tries to interact with her afterwards she will bite hard. She does this routine only on one of her play stands - clearly it's HER territory and not to be messed with. Most of the time she allows him to play with her on that play stand but if she does her angry dance...watch out!

 

[rosembers]

If you can, it is best to discourage this behavior (i.e. ignore it, stop engaging with your bird when she does this, etc) because hormonal behavior can manifest into your bird becoming egg bound which is usually fatal. It's a horrible horrible thing to go through. I mean it's really awful. You can research, but if a bird's hormones continue to develop, and her body eventually creates an egg, it can get stuck inside her body. For smaller birds it's not usually something that can even be operated on... For larger birds, it's more operable but still a low chance of survival (and the procedure includes a huge deep incision and mandatory "plucking" of the bird during surgery and they literally look like a rotisserie chicken from the bottom half of their body). I know someone whose Macaw (over 20 yrs old) had this happen for the first time in her life (she exhibited signs of affection, head bobbing, regurgitation, rubbing herself) and it seemed "sweet" and "bonding" until this happened. Also, snuggle huts can increase this hormonal behavior (amongst other dangers to happy huts - tons of reading material in this forum on that). Good luck with your bird!!