Is Yoshi trying to mate with me?

[suley]

Hello,

Yoshi my almost 2 yr old SI eclectus has been doing an odd behaviour of late and he only seems to do it to me and not my wife.

He basically wants to come on me and rubs the area underneath his tail(where he poops from and I am guessing where the rest of his genitalia is located?) on me and he gives me small very light non painful bites and shakes his tail like an excited dog would...

Is this mating beahaviour?

If so what do I do about it?

 

[chris-md]

Yes it is, it happens. My red sided eclectus has decided my partner is his mate so he's always fending off these advances. The best thing you can do is just put him back in his cage for a little bit of cooldown time. Not discipline, just some time to calm down a bit. Try not to make a huge fuss over it. This is natural behavior and there's nothing you can do about it. It's just part and parcel of owning a parrot.

 

[SilverSage]

Yep, mating behavior. I discourage it. When it happens, I drop the bird (safely, are big) to the floor and walk away. I then ignore the bird and let my husband do the interacting for the rest of the day. None of my birds have persisted in their mating attempts. I feel that it's important for the bird to understand the non-sexual nature of our relationship so I don't lead them on, just like I wouldn't want one of my human friends to think we had a chance for romance.

 

[Birdman666]

He's actually not trying to mate with you. There's a difference. It doesn't necessarily mean he considers you a mate... (Eckies are flock birds anyway. They're not exclusive breeders.)

He's masterbating.

Instead of using a rope perch, or similar object, he's using you.

It happens.

 

[suley]

Ok noted haha.

Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure what was going on to begin with so I wasn't really discouraging it. Actually initially thought he was trying to tell me something.

To Birdman, interesting, either way something to discourage.

 

[MikeyTN]

In the instance with a Eclectus I would agree since they are flock birds but with others such as Macaw, Cockatoo, Conure, etc I would say they're trying....My little Dusky Conure flies right to me as I am his person and he does that to me often. I just put him up to discourage it but he escapes his cage and does it all over again....lol

 

[Birdman666]

My Friggin' Dusky mounted my ear one day, and attempted to stick something in my ear hole that didn't belong there...

My little sun used to pleasure himself while sitting on my shoulder...

My red front macaw uses a rope toy.

It hasn't really been a problem with the rest of my guys, though I have had some foster birds that were, shall we say, easily aroused.

It seems to be something that they get in the habit of doing, like the dog that constantly tries to hump your leg... UMMM NO! WE DON'T DO THAT!

You certainly don't want to encourage it. I just kind of put them back when they started that stuff... YOU CAN DO THAT IN YOUR CAGE, THANK YOU.

Seems to lessen the frequency a bit.

Every living thing has a sex drive.

And when they can't satisfy it "the normal way" because they don't have that outlet, at some point they will find a way to satisfy it.

If they're not humping everything that moves all the time, then I don't consider it a problem. Just, thank you, not on me...