Male or female eclectus? Eclectus just in general?

[Sa_2503]

So I have both a make and female Ekkie. Basil just turned 23 years old last week, and Paprika is around 22 weeks old how.

Basil is very chill. He likes to be out and hang out, but doesn’t prefer to be held a lot. He’s never been into getting petted or scritches. He will let you hold him upside or like a football and is generally gentle minded. He just isn’t into hanging out in your shoulder or arm. He’d rather be on his perch next to you or on top of the cage while you are on the couch.

Paprika is still just a baby. But she is very different then Basil was. She likes her time to explore the house and loves to look out the front windows and scream any time a bird comes in view. She also loves to fly over and land on you if you are at the table or on the couch. She loves falling asleep on my shoulder and also loves to sit like a chicken on eggs on my chest and fall asleep. She loves the back of her head rubbed and also her beak rubbed. She will also go into assault mode sometimes where she lashes out at everything. She doesn’t bite hard but she definitely lets you know she’s in a certain mood.

This is just my experience. I have heard that females can get more aggressive as they hit puberty and you want to avoid allowing them into any dark spaces that they could see as a nest.


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Love the names!!!! So cute!!! I love pets with food names! I even have chili, chai, mochi, totopo (nacho in Mexico), or nutmeg as options for my future parrot! So, apparently, females tend to be more touchy with certain people (and all parrots seem to contradict information, guessing it comes down to the parrot personality). I will try to go to the breeder and see which parrot clicks with me.

Edit: Not going anywhere soon! They don't have babies or parrots to sell right now (probably they won't have until next year spring), which is okay for me.

 

[cneuhauser]

I'm a brand new Ekkie owner... and I'll add to this, since I've had previous birds. I recently posted about some strange new behaviors that I received from my Ekkie, and if I weren't as "aware" I probably would have dismissed them.

The longer I'm in the avian world the more I realize just how impressionable these creatures are; and I think that's the best way to put it. Sometimes we as humans can make ever so slight adjustments to routine/habit and it will drastically impact how the bird behaves.

Just a note from the peanut gallery, I'm a novice with Ekkie's, but my baby boy has already taught me a great deal about his species.

Oh and diet... is different than other birds. I'm constantly making chop, and including carrots and sweet potato for vitamin A.

 

[cytherian]

Yeah, did a quick search on cockatoos and I remembered why they went to the bottom of my list (I have been researching parrots for at least 3 years in order to find a good fit). I don't think I could handle a big cockatoo. I think an Eclectus will be a good fit for the moment (I will continue my research until I am really sure), and I don't mind if he doesn't let me touch him/her as much. I am actually looking for a bird that will most likely just enjoy spending time with us (being in the same place, perched on our arms, etc), and that will be receptive to trick training (clickers!). They are also known to be talkers, aren't they?

Eclectus seem to be a nice mix of pleasure & duty, where exotic birds are concerned. From all I've seen, I'd go with a male. There's something about the female once they reach the breeding age. Their imperative is to reproduce... and thus, hormonal challenges will arise. There are medications you can use to control it, but I'm not certain about the efficacy.

As for chatting... when you start them out young, they can be seriously chatty! My roommate's youngest Eclectus is a male who was born 2 years ago. She has talked to him frequently throughout his developing days and at this point he can really talk quite a bit! Of course, on his terms. Sometimes there are certain sounds or words that will "trigger" him into a talking streak. Other times, he'll just sit there and not say a word no matter what. But wow, is he articulate! At one point he was able to imitate the pitch of my roommate's voice the point where I thought it was her in the other room.

One other funny thing--the landline phone ring. The baby heard it from his first moments after birth. He can imitate it spot-on. He does like to play with it, adjusting timber, meter, loudness... I captured the sound and put it on my phone as a ringtone, so I can play it back with him as a "call-respond" interaction. That's one of the triggers I can use to get him into a talking mode.

 

[picklesandjesse]

Just checked in here to see what's going on. We've had our male ecky for 3years now and got him at 6 weeks as the breeder knew I'd had birds for 30 years, all types, wild and domestic. Sonny is the easiest bird I've known, but we are here for him all day and every day. He has no cage but a house on the wall in the kitchen up about 5ft off the floor. He sleeps in it and has a soft blanket on the bottom, he now and then goes back to it during the day to play with suspended balls etc or drink water ( with multi vitamins ) from his perch.
We started training him at 7 weeks with the aviator harness and now if we are going for a walk and wave it he'll fly over a wait to get in it...... after a playful fight. No biting though and he's never bitten anyone. When outside in public I can put him on his back and he lays there like a dead bird looking at the people who hold him. By now he's met over a thousand people, about 50 a week at least so guess that's more than 6000 !! even very small children. He flies free every day about 3 hours before sunset and sometimes we don't see him for an hour or so, other times he'll stay around the garden and torment the local rainbow lorikeets that we feed. They all know each other as do all the local birds and he's part of our local bird community these days. I've seen him escape from hawks a few times as he's a very good flier and gets to practice the right moves around the garden with magpies, cockatoos etc.
He loves going for a drive in the car and mostly sits on a perch between the front seats and sings along to the radio if it's turned up loud, the odd time he can be a bit naughty though on long trips and gets put in a small cage with some food if he plays up. I've taken him to Sydney about 20 times which is 800kms away and he stays on a boat with me either locked below with me or in a cage in the shade on deck. No free flying away from home....... yet.
He loves when we have visitors and the more noise we make the better he likes it. After dinner each night if we're watching TV etc he likes to get under a blanket and lay down on me for a couple of hours and maybe grind his beak. He sleeps flat on me and opens his wings, later he flies over to where his food is and eats before flying to his house and looking out his door at the world, he sleeps that way mostly facing out. All in all he's a very happy and well adjusted bird with a great vocabulary. Sometimes he'll sit on a chair for while and loves you to come up and have talk, the way he looks at you can make you believe that he understands what you're talking about. Football with large plastic balls is a game he plays for a few hours each day in the kitchen. They get destroyed now and then apart from one which he loves and vomits on, that's his girlfriend we think and it needs cleaning a couple of times each day, also gets hidden from him for a few hours at times. He is offered a huge variety of food which is there for him at all times, he only gets a couple of nuts and about 20 sunflower seeds after his afternoon fly.
That's about all I can think of for the moment.