My Eclectus keeps biting me and I don’t know what to do

[chris-md]

Hello amna,

I’m going to diverge from the group here. My good friends above gave some great advice, but don’t get to the meat of what you are dealing with: puberty.

At just over a year old, your girl is most definitely entering puberty. She is very hormonal, and the unpredictable biting is one of the most common experiences. There could be other expressions: seeking out dark holes, screaming, to name a few.

Your first line of defense here is education. Eclectus females are some of the more hormonally susceptible birds you’re going to come across, and it’s really important you educate yourself on parrot hormones.

There are things you can do to lightly mitigate: 14 hr nights in complete darkness, significant diet adjustments (you need to reduce sugar and fat in the diet), lots of exercise, avoid giving them access to dark locations, remove any guts you might keep in the cage. The list goes on. READ UP ON CONTROLLING HORMONES.

but understand that you can only control so much. Your bird has a baseline level of hormones in their system, as a result of puberty. Anything above baseline would only be layering, and making baseline worse. So once you strip away the exacerbators, you are left with the baseline that you have no control over and need to adapt around.

What is her diet like? How do you educated yourself on the dietary needs of the species, which are very unique compared to most other parrots.

This is also a point where learning your bird‘s body language is really important and where I begin to merge with my friends above. Eclectus can be a little harder to read because they do a lot of communication in the ultraviolet light with light reflecting off of their feathers. You need to learn to read your bird, which will let you anticipate behaviors.

Lastly, I would not necessarily agree right now with the recommendation to clip the wings. Eclectus can get psychologically sensitive about wing clips and begin to feather pick.

I have three big rules for you to follow right now that will make a big difference:

1. Don’t let her out of your sight. On people’s heads or on your shoulders where you can’t see her? No longer permitted. Interact with her in a way that keeps her in front of you. Parrots on the shoulder is a bit of a false objective. Some birds just can’t be trusted. My bird used to be on my shoulder but bit my ear twice so he’s no longer allowed up there.

2. Exercise make a difference. Mental and physical. Start trick training, start training flighted recall. If you can get her flying with intention and on command she can burn off a light touch of the hormones.

3. Don’t put yourself into situations where a bite is possible. Wrench is wise to say it: the best bite is the bite that doesn’t happen. Smart handling keeps you safe (see rule 1). But may take time to learn what that may actually entail for you.

Puberty is a challenging time. It when most birds are rehomed, because first time owners don’t know it’s coming and are ill equipped to understand and manage it. Especially first time owners of larger birds. Parrots are like dogs in so many ways, but in the ways that count, they are first and foremost exotic pets who should be treated as exotics, not domesticated pets.

Understand too that here in the forum we talk about hormones and parrots being hormonal. There are different contexts to what we mean:

1. Puberty: this is temporary
Then, once puberty is over:
2. Annual breeding season, mature birds enter 1-2 seasons per year in spring and fall
3. Some species, like us eclectus owners, deal with parrots who can breed any time of the year, which means hormones can be seasonal a bit, but can also be induced by things like amount of sleep and diet.

You can’t do much about puberty, but once you get past it, it gets easier. THIS TOO SHALL PASS. Puberty is temporary. It’s not a forever state.

For now, your job is to curb your expectations of what an ideal parrot is, and work AROUND the hormonal behaviors. Adapt to them while doing what you can to not make them worse. You can’t train them out, and shunning during this time is not likely to be successful becuase this isn’t a learned behavior.

Hunker down! And lean on us: this forum is replete with people who have been there, done that with this exact situation. We’re here to support you!

 

[wrench1356]

OP listen to Chris-MD -he's a ecci owner for a long time. Chris, i did not mention the whole talk about hormones, my error in giving incomplete advice. Yours is spot on for eckies!

 

[rheashard2]

I was hoping someone would put specific info. I enjoyed it.

 

[Amna]

Hello amna,

I’m going to diverge from the group here. My good friends above gave some great advice, but don’t get to the meat of what you are dealing with: puberty.

At just over a year old, your girl is most definitely entering puberty. She is very hormonal, and the unpredictable biting is one of the most common experiences. There could be other expressions: seeking out dark holes, screaming, to name a few.

Your first line of defense here is education. Eclectus females are some of the more hormonally susceptible birds you’re going to come across, and it’s really important you educate yourself on parrot hormones.

There are things you can do to lightly mitigate: 14 hr nights in complete darkness, significant diet adjustments (you need to reduce sugar and fat in the diet), lots of exercise, avoid giving them access to dark locations, remove any guts you might keep in the cage. The list goes on. READ UP ON CONTROLLING HORMONES.

but understand that you can only control so much. Your bird has a baseline level of hormones in their system, as a result of puberty. Anything above baseline would only be layering, and making baseline worse. So once you strip away the exacerbators, you are left with the baseline that you have no control over and need to adapt around.

What is her diet like? How do you educated yourself on the dietary needs of the species, which are very unique compared to most other parrots.

This is also a point where learning your bird‘s body language is really important and where I begin to merge with my friends above. Eclectus can be a little harder to read because they do a lot of communication in the ultraviolet light with light reflecting off of their feathers. You need to learn to read your bird, which will let you anticipate behaviors.

Lastly, I would not necessarily agree right now with the recommendation to clip the wings. Eclectus can get psychologically sensitive about wing clips and begin to feather pick.

I have three big rules for you to follow right now that will make a big difference:

1. Don’t let her out of your sight. On people’s heads or on your shoulders where you can’t see her? No longer permitted. Interact with her in a way that keeps her in front of you. Parrots on the shoulder is a bit of a false objective. Some birds just can’t be trusted. My bird used to be on my shoulder but bit my ear twice so he’s no longer allowed up there.

2. Exercise make a difference. Mental and physical. Start trick training, start training flighted recall. If you can get her flying with intention and on command she can burn off a light touch of the hormones.

3. Don’t put yourself into situations where a bite is possible. Wrench is wise to say it: the best bite is the bite that doesn’t happen. Smart handling keeps you safe (see rule 1). But may take time to learn what that may actually entail for you.

Puberty is a challenging time. It when most birds are rehomed, because first time owners don’t know it’s coming and are ill equipped to understand and manage it. Especially first time owners of larger birds. Parrots are like dogs in so many ways, but in the ways that count, they are first and foremost exotic pets who should be treated as exotics, not domesticated pets.

Understand too that here in the forum we talk about hormones and parrots being hormonal. There are different contexts to what we mean:

1. Puberty: this is temporary
Then, once puberty is over:
2. Annual breeding season, mature birds enter 1-2 seasons per year in spring and fall
3. Some species, like us eclectus owners, deal with parrots who can breed any time of the year, which means hormones can be seasonal a bit, but can also be induced by things like amount of sleep and diet.

You can’t do much about puberty, but once you get past it, it gets easier. THIS TOO SHALL PASS. Puberty is temporary. It’s not a forever state.

For now, your job is to curb your expectations of what an ideal parrot is, and work AROUND the hormonal behaviors. Adapt to them while doing what you can to not make them worse. You can’t train them out, and shunning during this time is not likely to be successful becuase this isn’t a learned behavior.

Hunker down! And lean on us: this forum is replete with people who have been there, done that with this exact situation. We’re here to support you!

Hello Chris,

First, I truly want to thank you for the valuable information you shared with me. I really benefited from it a lot!

She doesn’t have any nests in her cage or anything that might stimulate her hormones, but she definitely treats her entire cage as if it were her nest and protects it with all her strength—especially when I change her food or when it’s bedtime. I understand that this is completely normal for an Eclectus, so I don’t bother her about it. Even when I change her food or clean the cage, I place her somewhere else to play until I’m finished.

She sleeps well every day from sunset until a little after sunrise, which means about 12–14 hours.

As for her diet, I read a lot about Eclectus parrots before getting her and made sure to give her the proper diet.

Every day she eats two meals of veggie chops. The chop contains vegetables, legumes, and soaked grains such as quinoa and millets.

At bedtime, I put TOPS pellets in her cage because she wakes up during the night and asks for food. I can’t leave vegetables since they spoil, so during her 12 hours of sleep there are about 1 teaspoon of pellets available in her cage.

I also give her a portion of fruit as a snack between meals, such as berries, apples, apricots, and peaches. Most of the time it’s berries since they don’t contain too much sugar.

I offer boiled egg once a week so she can get protein and calcium from the eggshell.

Recently, I’ve been giving her one whole walnut.

Is that too much? I was giving it as a reward, but if it contains too much fat I will stop giving it to her.

I had been training her with target training and recall training. At first she didn’t respond at all and ignored me, but with time she started responding quite well.

Even though I have somewhat neglected her training lately because I’ve been busy with my university exams, I still try to dedicate five minutes every day to train her.

And yes, I will not clip her wings. She loves flying very much and she’s very good at it. I would never take away something she loves.

Also, yesterday I tried using the shunning technique, and she didn’t seem to care at all .

As soon as she bit me, I placed her on the back of a chair and walked away. She just started preening and then playing with the chair.

I will make sure to follow the three rules you mentioned, and I will try to avoid situations where she might bite as much as possible while learning her body language and signals. There are times when it’s very clear—she makes sounds like growling.

I will do my best and continue learning to understand her more and more, because I truly love her more than anything else.

Honestly, after your advice today I realized that the situation is much easier than I thought. Because of my fear and anxiety, I was making it seem more difficult than it really was. Today I was able to handle her much better—no bites and no injuries so far .

Thank you all so much. I’m truly grateful to all of you from the bottom of my heart.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Try to protect your skin from her beak. No shoulders. Something as simple as wearing long sleeves will help reduce bloodshed. A hooded zip up long sleeved sweatshirt can be your skin's best friend. Put the hood up to protect your head, neck and ears if she flies over and lands on you. Pull the sleeves over your hands when servicing her cage.
Rocky, my female budgie I raised from an egg three years ago, loves us but hates hands, and bites if they too close to her. Her vet even commented about her biting during an exam a couple months ago. She also chews everything and often flies over and tries to chew our skin if it's not covered. But she's a budgie not a bigger parrot and can only do so much damage with her little beak and she's never broken the skin. As you know, a big parrot like Rudi can really hurt you so you not only need to train her- you need to be proactive and protect your skin.

 

[chris-md]

There you go! You’ll have good days and bad days, but knowing it’s not as complicated definitely gives you a reassuring foundation.

Bravo on the diet, very well done. I’d look at the mix of what you’re putting in there. When I make frozen chop I don’t think exactly in percentages or proportions, but I do try to lower grains because those are carbs. It’s not just sugar. It’s carbs in general.

Id also back the fruit off and find a different treat entirely. Or give the fruit once every couple days. We had one former poster whose male went through puberty and she saw a single grape sent him into a hormonal spiral. They can be that sensitive. Don’t underestimate berries. But you also know your bird better than us so you’ll learn to better judge the propriety as you get more experience. The tops pellets are perfect for overnight! Origins wild eclectus pellets are also great, though twice the price.

To make it a bit easier, one trick you can do is cut the fresh chop out of the evening, and use the pellets or a dry mix. The idea is make nighttime meal boring and unstimulating. Something stimulating will lean into the hormone reactivity.

If you want to mix it up a bit for nighttime, you can get Goldenfeast Indonesian blend. It’s a Dry mix, some do the lowest fat and sugar contents of any dry mix around. My male, unbeknownst to me, has be insanely hormonal for months, it took a vet cray of his gonads to show they were 3x larger than they should be to find out just how entrenched his hormones were. I had to do the most dramatic intervention I’ve ever done. Blacked out his room with black construction bags, cut out all fruit, strict 14 hour sleep, and changed his diet at night. He had two different kinds of chop: one for morning, one for dinner. I switched dinner to the Indonesian blend mentioned above for the evening mix. It’s been my go to for years when I can’t give chop. That and the origins wild pellets that he completely ignore. Took about a month and a half but he finally calmed down. Not all perfect, he’s having a rougher day today, but he’s about to land out of this hormonal bout shortly.

Long story short: I’m so pleased to see your girl is in good hands. You’re doing everything right. Keep up the good work, and keep up the education! (On both fronts, good luck with uni!)

 

[chris-md]

Lastly, don’t give the egg. That’s a lot of protein, and is actively working against your hormone control efforts. If you’re worried about calcium, make sure you get more calcium rich foods like cauliflower into the chop. But calcium really isn’t an issue unless your chop isn’t balanced, or your girl is actively laying eggs, which your hormonal control efforts aim to prevents.

Once she’s past hormones, the occasional nibble on eggs is fine, but now is not the time for it.

Ekkies are notorious for atherosclerosis, clogged arteries, becuase they are sensitive to protein. My boy is 15, and he saw a vet for the first time in 5 years. Vet said by his age they usually see signs of atherosclerosis and arthritis, and he’s got none of them. The most protein heavy thing he gets is admittedly cheese, and that’s only when I REALLY need to bribe him to do something, like step up when he’s feeling particularly reluctant. Rarely does he get something like eggs.

Your efforts are best put towards ensuring she’s getting adequate beta carotene, Eddie’s have higher vitamin a requirements than most other parrots. Bell peppers, I do a lentil noodle dipped in a little bit of red palm oil, to name a few.

 

[rheashard2]

Hunker down! And lean on us: this forum is replete with people who have been there, done that with this exact situation. We’re here to support you!

This and patience are best. I've had my CAG, Nameliss for just over 21 yrs. Since she was about 3 1/2 months old. I love her. I enjoy her antics. But there are times when I look at her. Recipes for parrot pot pie float around with plans for vodka appetizer and dessert. Dealing with a parrot is demanding. Read through the tips. You are not alone.

 

[Amna]

Lastly, don’t give the egg. That’s a lot of protein, and is actively working against your hormone control efforts. If you’re worried about calcium, make sure you get more calcium rich foods like cauliflower into the chop. But calcium really isn’t an issue unless your chop isn’t balanced, or your girl is actively laying eggs, which your hormonal control efforts aim to prevents.

Once she’s past hormones, the occasional nibble on eggs is fine, but now is not the time for it.

Ekkies are notorious for atherosclerosis, clogged arteries, becuase they are sensitive to protein. My boy is 15, and he saw a vet for the first time in 5 years. Vet said by his age they usually see signs of atherosclerosis and arthritis, and he’s got none of them. The most protein heavy thing he gets is admittedly cheese, and that’s only when I REALLY need to bribe him to do something, like step up when he’s feeling particularly reluctant. Rarely does he get something like eggs.

Your efforts are best put towards ensuring she’s getting adequate beta carotene, Eddie’s have higher vitamin a requirements than most other parrots. Bell peppers, I do a lentil noodle dipped in a little bit of red palm oil, to name a few.

Thank you! I will make sure to follow your advice.

I’ve attached a picture of the chop recipe I made for her last time. I usually use the seasonal chop recipes from BirdTricks, but I remove some ingredients like rice and pasta. I only add some legumes along with cooked quinoa or millet.

As for pellets, besides TOPS, I previously used pellets from a company called Mengar. It’s an Arab company that makes pellets with organic ingredients and without added colors, vitamins, or artificial components.

I’ve attached the link, https://mengar.store/collections/food
and I’d really appreciate it if you could take a look at their products and tell me if they’re okay to use. I’m wondering if I can rely on them, since Rudi liked them a lot in the past.
From them, I’ve used Mengar Pellets 1, Fruit Meal, Veggie Meal, and the Pre-Cooked Mix

Thank you!

 

[rheashard2]

I am always looking for chop recipes. I like your color combination. Do you use a combination fresh, frozen or canned? Or do you stick with one thing? This forum has produced many chop recipes Nameliss will actually nibble. A few she dives in, rattling her dish for more.

 

[Amna]

I am always looking for chop recipes. I like your color combination. Do you use a combination fresh, frozen or canned? Or do you stick with one thing? This forum has produced many chop recipes Nameliss will actually nibble. A few she dives in, rattling her dish for more.

I only use fresh ingredients! I usually plan a day ahead, write down the ingredients I’m missing, and go shopping. As soon as I get home, I prepare the chop and put it in the freezer.

On rare occasions, I give her frozen corn and peas, but I serve them separately, not mixed with the chop. As for canned food, I don’t really like using it because it contains a lot of preservatives.

So far, I haven’t found a recipe that makes Rudi ask for more yet. I guess I need to keep searching and try more recipes!

 

[wrench1356]

Ahh, the Wide World of Chop ! And the finicky birds that eat it! For years I've been making a huge batch of chop, like 2-3 months worth at a time, bagging it in 3-4 days worth baggies and freezing all them, thawing out each days portion. I vary the recipe on it each time. I mix in a few crushed Nutraberries with the thawed chop, and change the 'Berries from 4 different flavors. Salty eats it all, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

But this week I am trying something different. I got 6 main ingredients: Habanero peppers, radicchio, broccolli, carrot sticks, baby spinach and diced sweet potato, and put it all thru a small size food processor, to make 2 days worth of fresh non-frozen chop. served with the aforesaid Nutraberries.

Salty chowed it down as usual. I suppose this method takes a bit longer then doing the huge batch thing (which takes a good 3 or so hours), with the fresh prep taking 10 min or so. Maybe it evens out. With the big batch thing, I incorporate many more ingredient, typically 16 or so.

So we'll see how this fresh prep thing goes.

 

[chris-md]

Ahh, the Wide World of Chop ! And the finicky birds that eat it! For years I've been making a huge batch of chop, like 2-3 months worth at a time, bagging it in 3-4 days worth baggies and freezing all them, thawing out each days portion. I vary the recipe on it each time. I mix in a few crushed Nutraberries with the thawed chop, and change the 'Berries from 4 different flavors. Salty eats it all, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

But this week I am trying something different. I got 6 main ingredients: Habanero peppers, radicchio, broccolli, carrot sticks, baby spinach and diced sweet potato, and put it all thru a small size food processor, to make 2 days worth of fresh non-frozen chop. served with the aforesaid Nutraberries.

Salty chowed it down as usual. I suppose this method takes a bit longer then doing the huge batch thing (which takes a good 3 or so hours), with the fresh prep taking 10 min or so. Maybe it evens out. With the big batch thing, I incorporate many more ingredient, typically 16 or so.

So we'll see how this fresh prep thing goes.

Wrenchy, Here, we do 8-10 months worth for Parker…and packaged into small snack bags so maybe 2 servings. 6 hours of prep

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I only use fresh ingredients! I usually plan a day ahead, write down the ingredients I’m missing, and go shopping. As soon as I get home, I prepare the chop and put it in the freezer.

On rare occasions, I give her frozen corn and peas, but I serve them separately, not mixed with the chop. As for canned food, I don’t really like using it because it contains a lot of preservatives.

So far, I haven’t found a recipe that makes Rudi ask for more yet. I guess I need to keep searching and try more recipes!

Sounds yummy. Canned corn and peas don't contain preservatives. I use them in my chop. You can get no sodium ones.

 

[wrench1356]

8-10 months worth! Thats real production line work!

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Wrenchy, Here, we do 8-10 months worth for Parker…and packaged into small snack bags so maybe 2 servings. 6 hours of prep

Wow! How much freezer space (for 80-100 ziplocks) does that take? I guess for one bird it can't be too much, but I have 19 budgies to feed and I have a chest freezer but I don't have enough or big enough pots to make that much chop in at once! I make 6 weeks at a time and it takes two standard sized large pots and 3 days worth does into each baggie.
I used to (lovingly?) hand chop the veggies into budgie beak-sized bites (BBSBs?) for my chop until I finally got a Ninja mini-food processor (my Choppy Thing). I dreaded Chop Day because hand chopping took forever and my hands sustained many small and not so small cuts, but my Choppy Thing makes it a breeze.

 

[wrench1356]

Folks lets take further discussions on chop and food to an appropriate forum, so the OPs original concerns can remain the topic of responses.

 

[rheashard2]

I usually use fresh frozen, preservative free veggies and some fruits. It is hard to find a fresh food market that I trust. I limit canned even sodium free. I don't like freezing leftover canned. My chest freezer was purchased and is used primarily for parrot chop and nuts, veggies, fruit and such. Coincidentally they are things that I enjoy eating too. As a result there's very little left over chop. Chop taken I add to soup, casseroles, and other things. Sometimes I give into Nameliss craving for rice. I'll cook a bit of brown or wild rice for us. Sometimes I get lazy and use electric veggie chopper or shredder on coarse for the big stuff like carrots. I even use the 'paste' left over from vegetable juicing. Nameliss doesn't object. I certainly didn't tell her that it is left overs. I don't know what she's going to do now. My migraine medication has stopped me wanting pizza, donuts, French fries, popcorn, rolls, turnovers and others. Things I shared with her in modera. I am eating 'healthy' without problems. At least I can still enjoy corn on the cob and rice. Things she also loves.

 

[rheashard2]

I tried part of your recipe. I mixed some of 'I won't ever eat that' with her likes. I was surprised. She actually tasted some of the new things. I was lucky that the store had alfalfa sprouts. Which she tasted and ate. It was especially surprising that she went after the lentils. She took a taste and rooted around for every one. I am always slightly altering chop recipe for variety. Also because what Miss Picky loves today becomes poisonous tomorrow. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Amna]

I tried part of your recipe. I mixed some of 'I won't ever eat that' with her likes. I was surprised. She actually tasted some of the new things. I was lucky that the store had alfalfa sprouts. Which she tasted and ate. It was especially surprising that she went after the lentils. She took a taste and rooted around for every one. I am always slightly altering chop recipe for variety. Also because what Miss Picky loves today becomes poisonous tomorrow. Thanks for posting it.

I’m really happy she liked it! It’s honestly so fun when you make chop and they love it, I feel proud of myself

Bon appétit, Nameliss!