Female Eclectus reaching down through grate and pulling up paper liner

[cytherian]

Our female eclectus is in a serious nesting phase. Anytime she's out of the cage, she tries to find secluded places to go and also forage for nesting materials. While in her cage, she has gotten so desperate to nest that she has started to reach down beneath the grate floor of her cage, pulling up the paper liners. She didn't used to do it before, but after having used liners that weren't a perfect fit (vendor sent us papers that weren't cut exactly), she noticed the paper edge and began lifting. Now she does it all the time.

This is an older cage and there's no means of lowering the floor. Of course, the surefire solution would be to replace the cage. But that's expensive! ($500+). I was thinking of perhaps finding metal slats to place on top of the paper along the edges, weighing down the paper so it lies perfectly flat and makes it harder to lift up. But if there's a better idea, I'm eager to hear it! Thanks.

 

[chris-md]

I would worry about it personally. If she wants to shred the liner, let her shred the liner.

Does she have shreddable toys? Foraging toys? Things to distract her

 

[noodles123]

I removed the paper from my U2's cage bottom years ago for this reason. Eclectus and U2s are both fairly hormonal. ChrisMD is an eckie owner, and I am not, but I will say that in hormonal birds, shredding is a nesting behavior and can lead to egg-laying in females (which can lead to medical consequences).
Make sure you provide at least 10 hours relatively uninterrupted sleep on a nightly schedule..12 is okay too, but not less than 10...

No access to shadowy spaces, boxes, bedding, partially covered anything, under furniture, hunts, tents, shadowy laps etc.
Reduce or eliminate access to nesting materials (e.g., shredding toys that seem to be a fixation)
Pet on the head and neck only
Walk away/ignore any hormonal behavior involving you.
Provide plenty of time to forage and play outside of cage, along with wooden toys of various textures.


I recently have dealt with a sudden egg issue (after many years of adulthood without), but the tips above have worked for me for years and I think the reason for Noodles' recent egg-laying has to do with the early swapping of an egg for a dummy egg that was too small...So, while I don't seem very credible lately lol, this stuff really works.


You could also try putting unfamiliar objects on the cage floor where your bird is chewing--that worked for me as well, until I got tired of washing them.

 

[WhiteFlight]

This is an older cage and there's no means of lowering the floor.

I was able to raise the grate on both of my cages. Securing the grate to the vertical bars was accomplished using brass hardware.

Removing the paper might work for you, however without the buffer the acids in the waste can speedup corrosion to the pan surface.

 

[wrench13]

My little Amazon, LOVES to do exactly this! I got pack of poster board, cut it to the exact size of the lower pan, and he cant pull it up or get a hold of it. Poster board or poster paper as its knows, is available at any office supply store, and its not terribly expensive. After mating season is over yu might be able to go back to using newspaper.

 

[cytherian]

I would worry about it personally. If she wants to shred the liner, let her shred the liner.

Does she have shreddable toys? Foraging toys? Things to distract her

OK. It's just that it's such a mess! Especially when there's poop already on the paper before she starts pulling at it. She has been given some foraging toys & shredding toys, but it's not enough apparently.

I removed the paper from my U2's cage bottom years ago for this reason. Eclectus and U2s are both fairly hormonal. ChrisMD is an eckie owner, and I am not, but I will say that in hormonal birds, shredding is a nesting behavior and can lead to egg-laying in females (which can lead to medical consequences).
Make sure you provide at least 10 hours relatively uninterrupted sleep on a nightly schedule..12 is okay too, but not less than 10...

No access to shadowy spaces, boxes, bedding, partially covered anything, under furniture, hunts, tents, shadowy laps etc.
Reduce or eliminate access to nesting materials (e.g., shredding toys that seem to be a fixation)
Pet on the head and neck only. Walk away/ignore any hormonal behavior involving you. Provide plenty of time to forage and play outside of cage, along with wooden toys of various textures.

I recently have dealt with a sudden egg issue (after many years of adulthood without), but the tips above have worked for me for years and I think the reason for Noodles' recent egg-laying has to do with the early swapping of an egg for a dummy egg that was too small...So, while I don't seem very credible lately lol, this stuff really works.

You could also try putting unfamiliar objects on the cage floor where your bird is chewing--that worked for me as well, until I got tired of washing them.

This is kind of the problem. She hasn't been given a solid 10 contiguous hours. It's more like 8. She does nap a bit during the day, when she's not fixated on the cage liner paper. Her owner (my roommate) is mindful to not do full body stroking & cradling any longer, just head and chest strokes. She does get about an hour of time outside the cage, but her owner is trying to increase that.

The issue started about a year after she'd weaned her baby. Her egg laying was subsequently prolific. Her owner didn't really understand what was going on. And then the egg obstruction happened. The bird almost died. She now has a chip inserted that effectively nixes the egg creation. But that's not stopping her hormonal imperative.

Sadly, she's only happy when she's out of her cage and cavorting with her mate, as well as nesting activity in the toy crate on the couch. Her vocalizations were never quite varied, but now it's almost always an ear piercing squawk. Often she'll get into a mode of at least 1 or 2 per minute. And she'll tend to do it when there's someone in the adjacent kitchen. It feels like she's saying "@#$%&* let me out!" Even her facial characteristics seem to telegraph unhappiness. But she's not plucking. Her weight is good. But her vocalizations are such a stark contrast to the 2 males (her mate and her juvenile boy), who are so wonderfully varied & cheerful.

 

[noodles123]

I would worry about it personally. If she wants to shred the liner, let her shred the liner.

Does she have shreddable toys? Foraging toys? Things to distract her

OK. It's just that it's such a mess! Especially when there's poop already on the paper before she starts pulling at it. She has been given some foraging toys & shredding toys, but it's not enough apparently.

I removed the paper from my U2's cage bottom years ago for this reason. Eclectus and U2s are both fairly hormonal. ChrisMD is an eckie owner, and I am not, but I will say that in hormonal birds, shredding is a nesting behavior and can lead to egg-laying in females (which can lead to medical consequences).
Make sure you provide at least 10 hours relatively uninterrupted sleep on a nightly schedule..12 is okay too, but not less than 10...

No access to shadowy spaces, boxes, bedding, partially covered anything, under furniture, hunts, tents, shadowy laps etc.
Reduce or eliminate access to nesting materials (e.g., shredding toys that seem to be a fixation)
Pet on the head and neck only. Walk away/ignore any hormonal behavior involving you. Provide plenty of time to forage and play outside of cage, along with wooden toys of various textures.

I recently have dealt with a sudden egg issue (after many years of adulthood without), but the tips above have worked for me for years and I think the reason for Noodles' recent egg-laying has to do with the early swapping of an egg for a dummy egg that was too small...So, while I don't seem very credible lately lol, this stuff really works.

You could also try putting unfamiliar objects on the cage floor where your bird is chewing--that worked for me as well, until I got tired of washing them.

This is kind of the problem. She hasn't been given a solid 10 contiguous hours. It's more like 8. She does nap a bit during the day, when she's not fixated on the cage liner paper. Her owner (my roommate) is mindful to not do full body stroking & cradling any longer, just head and chest strokes. She does get about an hour of time outside the cage, but her owner is trying to increase that.

The issue started about a year after she'd weaned her baby. Her egg laying was subsequently prolific. Her owner didn't really understand what was going on. And then the egg obstruction happened. The bird almost died. She now has a chip inserted that effectively nixes the egg creation. But that's not stopping her hormonal imperative.

Sadly, she's only happy when she's out of her cage and cavorting with her mate, as well as nesting activity in the toy crate on the couch. Her vocalizations were never quite varied, but now it's almost always an ear piercing squawk. Often she'll get into a mode of at least 1 or 2 per minute. And she'll tend to do it when there's someone in the adjacent kitchen. It feels like she's saying "@#$%&* let me out!" Even her facial characteristics seem to telegraph unhappiness. But she's not plucking. Her weight is good. But her vocalizations are such a stark contrast to the 2 males (her mate and her juvenile boy), who are so wonderfully varied & cheerful.

She absolutely needs more sleep and more time out of the cage. I so very much appreciate your investment here, and I hope, that if you have your roommates ear, you emphasize this as much as humanly possible. These birds have a very important internal clock, and they also rival dolphins and orangutans in intelligence- plus, in the wild, they would fly 40 miles a day in most cases...10 hours sleep MINIMUM and 2 hours out **bare bones** minimum (I cringed typing that, because saying 2 hours minimum is like saying it is okay for a human toddler to have only 2 hours out of a playpen 4x5'(only humans are far less active than parrots).



Don't take that comment personally-- I just think that parrots suffer a great deal and it's tragic (not because people don't care, but because captivity is so unnatural)- A parrot can be healthy and happy in a home, but, in most cases, it takes a lot of planning and commitment.




You can do this and keep a job. You may need a room for the bird, and you have to set a routine to come home to cover/uncover, but even it's not impossible to work and do this.