How do I interpret this behaviour difference?

[Lentemorgen]

I am very curious as to how to interpret the behaviour of my eccie. Mango is almost 1 year old and behaves very differently with me or my husband.
With me he loves to cuddle, sit or sleep with me, preening me and just being around me. He's very careful and gentle with his beak and never bites me. He prefers to sit with me rather than sitting with my husband (flies back to me as soon as my husband gets him off of me).


With my husband he's very different though. He behaves very much macho-ish, does the eye pinning, bites very hard sometimes and gets really hyper when he plays with him. He also makes a lot of sounds when he's with my husband (and he doesn't do this with me). He does seem to like my husband aswell though.
So in other words he's a completely different bird to each of us. Is this normal and what could it mean? Is he bonding with us in a different way?

 

[ChristaNL]

Not to point fingers or any of that stuff,
because well, everybody is different... and we love that!

Having said that let's just jump straight into generelisations, just for fun.
Women are still taught to be carefull and controlled where boys are allowed to grow up boisterous and sometimes not all that elegant. (etc.etc.)

Whether it is nature or nurture ... we all sit, stand, lift things, touch things, phrase things in quite different ways (not just male/female but on individual levels as well).

So there is no way anyone, parrot or otherwise will interact exactly the same with different people.


So maybe your husbands moves quite differently from you and gets Mango off balance a bit (no relaxation), could be more heavyhanded when petting the bird, so Mango responds with some non-verbal 'shouting' (beaking harder) of his own. Of maybe Mango loves to roughhouse, but you are so controlled/quiet he does not see you as someone to have that kind of fun with ... so is happy to play with your husband. Your husband may have a louder voice (chances are pretty good it is deeper than yours anyway) so invites more vocal responses.


To get back to your question: I think Mango is being a completely normal, responsive, interactive bird

 

[Lentemorgen]

Wow, thank you for the response! I never thought of it that way.
I'm actually more 'rough' with him than my husband as he is scared of getting bitten (birds are more my kind of thing, but I infected my husband aswell ).

I can put Mango on his back and playfight with him, but he won't bite me. My husband doesn't dare doing this because Mango loves to use his beak on him. He doesn't do it in an agressive way by the way.


Come to think of it: I forgot to mention that Mango does growl towards my husband and not towards me. For example: when my husband puts him in his sleeping case, Mango gets angry and growls loudly at him. When I do the same thing, he just sits calmly on his perch and does some beakgrinding (but no growling at all).

 

[ChristaNL]

Parrots always do things they are rewarded for-
so if you are quite unfazed by mango growling a bit -> no reward
if your husband is not so sure nothing will happen - he will respond (maybe not even intentionally) so the bird goes: "this is fun, lets do it again".


Of course he will decide to try and get a mate at some point- when the hormones kick in. It is written in the birdy hardware- no getting around that.


I sounds you are more confident with the bird than he is - not to accuse anyone of course, it is easier to be confident with a nice bird than with a bitey one (been there, done <and sometimes failed> that).
Maybe get your hubby into that sticky we have about bitepressuretraining?
You do not have to dominate a bird to set boundries, but it is important everybody learns to play nice (looking at you birdy!)


(I always tell my greys: "growling is okay, you can protest all you want, but we are going to ... anyway" / since they will sometimes growl at me when I end their showertime... its necessary, otherwise this place woud be flooded!)