charmedbyekkie
New member
So I figured I should update on Cairo officially hitting puberty since there aren't many with young ekkie boys on this forum (jealous of y'all with mature adults).
The reason I say it's official is because Cairo tried rubbing himself on a blanket near my hand yesterday, then proceeded to try to position himself on my hands for the rest of the day.
A few things I've noticed:
Screaming
Oh my gawd, the screaming. He is demanding my presence. At first, I was really confused. We had trained this boy since we got him to call for us with whistles. Then earlier this year, we kinda got names from him (I'm "uh-oh" because when he would drop things, I would say "uh-oh" and go over to pick it up for him; my partner is "peek-a-boo" because of the hide-and-seek game they play).
Now, he is incessantly screaming if he is in his cage (even though we're all working at home, I'm trying to keep his schedule of cage time / separation from us normal, so he doesn't have a hard time transitioning when we go back to work in the office). There's only an hour here and an hour there where he isn't screaming. And when he is out of his cage, he has to know where I am and hates it when I give attention to even stuffed toys.
More than that, he is screaming at anyone who enters what he view his area - including the front yard. So he's screaming at birds, at people, at anything he sees. And no, he didn't used to do this before.
I've been trying my hardest to manage this. Ignore him when he screams, treat him when he says something nice, but it isn't really working at all. I've tried covering the window as well, but that doesn't satisfy either. I've given him 4-5 foraging toys, but he's figured them all out, so in total, they only last maybe 15 minutes or less. I keep giving him plants from the garden - he loves basil and amaranth, though he'll primarily go for their flowers, so that lasts max half an hour.
Aggression
He's a lot more mouthy than usual. Leading up to him trying to get it on with my hands, he was really territorial and my partner's hands were suffering for it. Now that he finds my hands particularly interesting, he's not biting as much, if at all. But when my hands aren't around, we've yet to see.
That being said, he views certain areas as his. We've an area that's about 4 inches deep and 2ft by 2ft, and he seems to view that as a nest. He lunges at my partner and throws a fit if he's inside his cage and sees us interacting with that area. I've had to cover the area completely because he would go to the center of that area and just defend it. If I interacted with him in that area (like sing to him), he would try to regurgitate for me almost immediately.
Touch
Cairo normally hates being touched - he'll tolerate it for specific reasons, but otherwise untouchable. Lately he's been more touchable. And yes, we only touch his head/neck. But lately, when I touch his head or neck area, he will sit and accept it before trying to regurgitate for me. Even my partner can touch his head. *sigh, so no more touching. Period.
Regurgitation
Yep, so as mentioned above, he's regurgitating whenever I touch his head or when he is in his self-designated 'nest' area and I talk to him. He hasn't figured out that he has to expel it from his beak - he just eats it back up, which I kinda am grateful for. I don't want to worry about him losing weight or nutrients from feeding a non-existent mate. I'm trying to stop everything and everywhere that potentially triggers him. And when he starts, I ask him to calm down and gently put him in his cage (he's fully-flighted, so he just flies back to me to try regurgitating again if I try to place him on his stand).
In his cage
Like Parker, Cairo is now hanging out at the bottom of his cage more. So I have gone ahead and added a few toys there to keep him occupied instead of screaming at us all day.
Sleep
He has decided his sleep is the most precious thing in the world. When we got him, he would sleep through anything if you just reduced the light a little. He would sleep through movies, people talking and laughing, anything. Just cover his cage, and he would sleep.
Now, the slightest amount of light or noise will trigger screaming. His cage is in the living room where we do cover it at night, but now we've had to set up his baby cage inside our bedroom. At night, he'll scream when he wants to go to sleep earlier than his bedtime, so I'll tuck him into the baby/sleep cage and cover that and turn off the bedroom lights. And heaven forbid you wake him up too early.
I used to make sure he had 12 hours of sleep, but now he's been demanding about 14+ hours of sleep... I'm making sure he has it.
Diet
BE ABSOLUTELY CAREFUL WITH DIET. Oh my. I feed him the tiniest sliver of fruit, and he goes full-blow raging afterwards for the next couple of days. 1 blueberry and he went bonkers. A tiny piece of fig, again crazy aggro. I used to only feed him fruits on the weekends when we would go flying to exercise it off. But I can't even feed him fruits on the weekends now unless my partner is ok with bloody hands. I've had to completely cut it from his diet in an effort to make him more manageable. I used to also give him freeze dried sprouts for his foraging toys. I'm having to reduce that and even cut it out too. I've honestly been trying to tinker with his diet for the past few months of hormones now (trying different combos for weeks at a time before switching to something new) and honestly cutting out fruits and reducing sprouts is the only thing working.
It's an absolute challenge. Since everyone is working from home, it's even more challenging to prevent him disrupting everyone's conference calls. Our poor flatmate has been incredibly patient, and my partner steps in whenever I need handle client calls myself. Otherwise, I'm managing Cairo somewhat by myself.
I even juggle internal work calls with Cairo. Before yesterday, he would run around the room trying to eat everything. Then since yesterday, he has been aiming for my hands. So I guess, it makes it easier since I don't have to watch him to prevent him from chewing something that will kill him? Now he just runs around me, which means typing is a pain, but my colleagues are very understanding.
So yeah, before Cairo, I wanted an adult bird to avoid all of this puberty stuff, but hey, Cairo flew into our lives, so we'll just take it in stride as best we can. Our breeder friend warned us this will likely keep up until he's about 7yo, in which case his hormones will be environmentally triggered.
For those looking for cute babies, I do miss his baby face and cute moments, but 5 years of raging hormones is insane. I'm tanking this because I'm looking forward to the next few decades of our lives together when hormones aren't so constant.
The reason I say it's official is because Cairo tried rubbing himself on a blanket near my hand yesterday, then proceeded to try to position himself on my hands for the rest of the day.
A few things I've noticed:
Screaming
Oh my gawd, the screaming. He is demanding my presence. At first, I was really confused. We had trained this boy since we got him to call for us with whistles. Then earlier this year, we kinda got names from him (I'm "uh-oh" because when he would drop things, I would say "uh-oh" and go over to pick it up for him; my partner is "peek-a-boo" because of the hide-and-seek game they play).
Now, he is incessantly screaming if he is in his cage (even though we're all working at home, I'm trying to keep his schedule of cage time / separation from us normal, so he doesn't have a hard time transitioning when we go back to work in the office). There's only an hour here and an hour there where he isn't screaming. And when he is out of his cage, he has to know where I am and hates it when I give attention to even stuffed toys.
More than that, he is screaming at anyone who enters what he view his area - including the front yard. So he's screaming at birds, at people, at anything he sees. And no, he didn't used to do this before.
I've been trying my hardest to manage this. Ignore him when he screams, treat him when he says something nice, but it isn't really working at all. I've tried covering the window as well, but that doesn't satisfy either. I've given him 4-5 foraging toys, but he's figured them all out, so in total, they only last maybe 15 minutes or less. I keep giving him plants from the garden - he loves basil and amaranth, though he'll primarily go for their flowers, so that lasts max half an hour.
Aggression
He's a lot more mouthy than usual. Leading up to him trying to get it on with my hands, he was really territorial and my partner's hands were suffering for it. Now that he finds my hands particularly interesting, he's not biting as much, if at all. But when my hands aren't around, we've yet to see.
That being said, he views certain areas as his. We've an area that's about 4 inches deep and 2ft by 2ft, and he seems to view that as a nest. He lunges at my partner and throws a fit if he's inside his cage and sees us interacting with that area. I've had to cover the area completely because he would go to the center of that area and just defend it. If I interacted with him in that area (like sing to him), he would try to regurgitate for me almost immediately.
Touch
Cairo normally hates being touched - he'll tolerate it for specific reasons, but otherwise untouchable. Lately he's been more touchable. And yes, we only touch his head/neck. But lately, when I touch his head or neck area, he will sit and accept it before trying to regurgitate for me. Even my partner can touch his head. *sigh, so no more touching. Period.
Regurgitation
Yep, so as mentioned above, he's regurgitating whenever I touch his head or when he is in his self-designated 'nest' area and I talk to him. He hasn't figured out that he has to expel it from his beak - he just eats it back up, which I kinda am grateful for. I don't want to worry about him losing weight or nutrients from feeding a non-existent mate. I'm trying to stop everything and everywhere that potentially triggers him. And when he starts, I ask him to calm down and gently put him in his cage (he's fully-flighted, so he just flies back to me to try regurgitating again if I try to place him on his stand).
In his cage
Like Parker, Cairo is now hanging out at the bottom of his cage more. So I have gone ahead and added a few toys there to keep him occupied instead of screaming at us all day.
Sleep
He has decided his sleep is the most precious thing in the world. When we got him, he would sleep through anything if you just reduced the light a little. He would sleep through movies, people talking and laughing, anything. Just cover his cage, and he would sleep.
Now, the slightest amount of light or noise will trigger screaming. His cage is in the living room where we do cover it at night, but now we've had to set up his baby cage inside our bedroom. At night, he'll scream when he wants to go to sleep earlier than his bedtime, so I'll tuck him into the baby/sleep cage and cover that and turn off the bedroom lights. And heaven forbid you wake him up too early.
I used to make sure he had 12 hours of sleep, but now he's been demanding about 14+ hours of sleep... I'm making sure he has it.
Diet
BE ABSOLUTELY CAREFUL WITH DIET. Oh my. I feed him the tiniest sliver of fruit, and he goes full-blow raging afterwards for the next couple of days. 1 blueberry and he went bonkers. A tiny piece of fig, again crazy aggro. I used to only feed him fruits on the weekends when we would go flying to exercise it off. But I can't even feed him fruits on the weekends now unless my partner is ok with bloody hands. I've had to completely cut it from his diet in an effort to make him more manageable. I used to also give him freeze dried sprouts for his foraging toys. I'm having to reduce that and even cut it out too. I've honestly been trying to tinker with his diet for the past few months of hormones now (trying different combos for weeks at a time before switching to something new) and honestly cutting out fruits and reducing sprouts is the only thing working.
It's an absolute challenge. Since everyone is working from home, it's even more challenging to prevent him disrupting everyone's conference calls. Our poor flatmate has been incredibly patient, and my partner steps in whenever I need handle client calls myself. Otherwise, I'm managing Cairo somewhat by myself.
I even juggle internal work calls with Cairo. Before yesterday, he would run around the room trying to eat everything. Then since yesterday, he has been aiming for my hands. So I guess, it makes it easier since I don't have to watch him to prevent him from chewing something that will kill him? Now he just runs around me, which means typing is a pain, but my colleagues are very understanding.
So yeah, before Cairo, I wanted an adult bird to avoid all of this puberty stuff, but hey, Cairo flew into our lives, so we'll just take it in stride as best we can. Our breeder friend warned us this will likely keep up until he's about 7yo, in which case his hormones will be environmentally triggered.
For those looking for cute babies, I do miss his baby face and cute moments, but 5 years of raging hormones is insane. I'm tanking this because I'm looking forward to the next few decades of our lives together when hormones aren't so constant.