chris-md
Well-known member
- Feb 6, 2010
- 4,387
- 2,194
- Parrots
- Parker - male Eclectus
Aphrodite - red throated conure (RIP)
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!
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!
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