Rump Rubbing?

[Anesthesia]

Hello,
I'm a first time Conure owner, and a parront of two Peach Faced Lovebirds.

I recently adopted a Pineapple Green Cheek from a previous owner who could no longer look after her. I recently took her to a vet to get a check up and DNA test, which came back yesterday and proved she's a female (her name was originally Walter; it's now Wanda).


Wanda has had nasty habit of rubbing her rump against my fingers when she's perched. Just curious if this means she's in heat or if it's just a typical Conure habit. She's approx 8 months old, so should I consider getting her a nesting box soon? Thanks in advance

 

[Sunnyclover]

That's a mating behavior and when she does it please put her down for a minute or try to distract her. It's not good for her or you to let her continue.

Also why do you need a nesting box? Unless yours experienced breeder and know how to raise babies and have a mate for her you should under NO circumstances get a nesting box or anything that resembles a nesting box.

Plus 8 months it too young to breed her...

 

[itzjbean]

Agree with Sunnyclover above -- this is hormonal/nesting behavior and the addition of a nestbox to her would be useless unless you want to deal with her laying eggs, possibly becoming egg-bound and risking death.

Please don't add in a nestbox. It will only stimulate her more to do this and it should not be encouraged. There's no need for her to have one, she does not need to lay eggs to be a happy bird. Continue to treat her the same as always but try to discourage the rump-rubbing by distracting her with something else to do or blocking her.

 

[EllenD]

Well said...birds don't go into "heat", but they become hormonal as puberty hits. Her rubbing her vent on your hand is a hormonal behavior, as they do masterbate. When she does this, please put her back in her cage or just down for a while, as this will only serve to frustrate her, and encourage her to continue to do it, and possibly to start laying eggs, which you don't want.

Nest boxes are only for birds who you purposely want to breed, as the nest box, or any type of box or similar container that is dark, only serves to make them more hormonal and want to lay eggs. So obviously you don't want that. Not only is your bird too young to breed, but you have no male, nor do you have any experience breeding or hand-feeding baby birds. So I don't advise that you get a male conure and breed her, and you certainly do not want to put anything like a nest box in her cage or allow her to be anywhere near one, as it will only make her more hormonal and start laying eggs.

Female parrots can lay infertile eggs in large quantities with no male bird present, and this causes the calcium to be leeched from their bodies, and it also risks them becoming egg-bound, which is fatal 100% of the time without medical intervention. So the best thing you can do is to discourage all of her hormonal behaviors and make sure that she has no small, dark places to go into/under, like a nest box, a cardboard box, under the couch, etc.

 

[Anesthesia]

Well said...birds don't go into "heat", but they become hormonal as puberty hits. Her rubbing her vent on your hand is a hormonal behavior, as they do masterbate. When she does this, please put her back in her cage or just down for a while, as this will only serve to frustrate her, and encourage her to continue to do it, and possibly to start laying eggs, which you don't want.

Nest boxes are only for birds who you purposely want to breed, as the nest box, or any type of box or similar container that is dark, only serves to make them more hormonal and want to lay eggs. So obviously you don't want that. Not only is your bird too young to breed, but you have no male, nor do you have any experience breeding or hand-feeding baby birds. So I don't advise that you get a male conure and breed her, and you certainly do not want to put anything like a nest box in her cage or allow her to be anywhere near one, as it will only make her more hormonal and start laying eggs.

Female parrots can lay infertile eggs in large quantities with no male bird present, and this causes the calcium to be leeched from their bodies, and it also risks them becoming egg-bound, which is fatal 100% of the time without medical intervention. So the best thing you can do is to discourage all of her hormonal behaviors and make sure that she has no small, dark places to go into/under, like a nest box, a cardboard box, under the couch, etc.

I see. Thank you for the informative response. I've been putting her on time outs in the cage each time she's rubbed.
I liked the idea of having an additional baby or two. Plus I had bought a large cage, but her previous owner included the cage - which I wasn't expecting. I wasn't well aware of the egg-bound risk. Good thing I didn't buy a box at the pet store today!

 

[itzjbean]

Well said...birds don't go into "heat", but they become hormonal as puberty hits. Her rubbing her vent on your hand is a hormonal behavior, as they do masterbate. When she does this, please put her back in her cage or just down for a while, as this will only serve to frustrate her, and encourage her to continue to do it, and possibly to start laying eggs, which you don't want.

Nest boxes are only for birds who you purposely want to breed, as the nest box, or any type of box or similar container that is dark, only serves to make them more hormonal and want to lay eggs. So obviously you don't want that. Not only is your bird too young to breed, but you have no male, nor do you have any experience breeding or hand-feeding baby birds. So I don't advise that you get a male conure and breed her, and you certainly do not want to put anything like a nest box in her cage or allow her to be anywhere near one, as it will only make her more hormonal and start laying eggs.

Female parrots can lay infertile eggs in large quantities with no male bird present, and this causes the calcium to be leeched from their bodies, and it also risks them becoming egg-bound, which is fatal 100% of the time without medical intervention. So the best thing you can do is to discourage all of her hormonal behaviors and make sure that she has no small, dark places to go into/under, like a nest box, a cardboard box, under the couch, etc.

I see. Thank you for the informative response. I've been putting her on time outs in the cage each time she's rubbed.
I liked the idea of having an additional baby or two. Plus I had bought a large cage, but her previous owner included the cage - which I wasn't expecting. I wasn't well aware of the egg-bound risk. Good thing I didn't buy a box at the pet store today!

Breeding birds should not be taken on unless you have done TONS Of research (if you don't know about egg-binding, it Is common in females, you should keep on researching for a few more years), and even with research you need experience in case emergency occurs -- if the parents refuse to feed babies, pick on babies, abandon them, etc. YOU must step in as a breeder to intervene, take out babies and begin handfeeding, and handfeeding is so risky without experience. Breeding birds is heartbreaking -- I know because I just lost my female cockatiel this year, she died while on her eggs. Even pulling the eggs to incubate and they still didn't survive. I was heartbroken.

 

[EllenD]

Well said...birds don't go into "heat", but they become hormonal as puberty hits. Her rubbing her vent on your hand is a hormonal behavior, as they do masterbate. When she does this, please put her back in her cage or just down for a while, as this will only serve to frustrate her, and encourage her to continue to do it, and possibly to start laying eggs, which you don't want.

Nest boxes are only for birds who you purposely want to breed, as the nest box, or any type of box or similar container that is dark, only serves to make them more hormonal and want to lay eggs. So obviously you don't want that. Not only is your bird too young to breed, but you have no male, nor do you have any experience breeding or hand-feeding baby birds. So I don't advise that you get a male conure and breed her, and you certainly do not want to put anything like a nest box in her cage or allow her to be anywhere near one, as it will only make her more hormonal and start laying eggs.

Female parrots can lay infertile eggs in large quantities with no male bird present, and this causes the calcium to be leeched from their bodies, and it also risks them becoming egg-bound, which is fatal 100% of the time without medical intervention. So the best thing you can do is to discourage all of her hormonal behaviors and make sure that she has no small, dark places to go into/under, like a nest box, a cardboard box, under the couch, etc.

I see. Thank you for the informative response. I've been putting her on time outs in the cage each time she's rubbed.
I liked the idea of having an additional baby or two. Plus I had bought a large cage, but her previous owner included the cage - which I wasn't expecting. I wasn't well aware of the egg-bound risk. Good thing I didn't buy a box at the pet store today!

I don't encourage you to buy a male conure and actually breeding your bird, for 2 reasons:

#1) Usually when even a hand-raised, tame parrot is put with another parrot of the same species and the opposite sex, those 2 birds bond closely with each other, and they lose all interest in being bonded or having anything at all to do with humans. So if you bought this conure to be your pet that you can handle, who loves you, etc., then buying her a male green cheek conure will more than likely end that relationship. This is why "breeding pairs" of parrots are sold as "breeding pairs", meaning they are not pets, not friendly or able to be handled. There are rare, very rare exceptions to this, but 95% of the time you lose your pet.

#2) Breeding parrots is nothing at all like breeding dogs, cats, rodents, not even like breeding poultry birds or game birds. Yes, you can decide since you have no hand-raising/feeding experience to simply allow the 2 parent birds to raise/feed the babies instead of pulling the babies from the nest box between 2 to 3 weeks old, like parrot breeders do, in order to hand-raise/feed them yourself and to make them into very tame pets. In fact, it's possible to allow the babies to live in the nest box and be fed by the parents, and then simply remove them daily to handle and play with them in order to try to tame them. HOWEVER, YOU MUST BE TOTALLY PREPARED TO TAKE-OVER HAND-FEEDING/RAISING THE BABIES AT ANY TIME, FROM DAY 1 OF HATCHING UNTIL THEY WEAN BETWEEN 8-13 WEEKS OLD. Parent birds often just stop feeding their babies, they literally kick the babies out of the nest box, they start to pluck the babies, hurt or try to kill them, etc. So at any time you might be required to pull the babies and take over, any time from day 1, when they are teeny-tiny, blind, and extremely hard to hand feed without aspirating...most bird breeders have years and years of experience hand-feeding and have either been taught or mentored by another long-time bird breeder. Plus, you have to keep a Brooder on-hand to keep the babies in, as they cannot be out in the normal, ambient temperatures until they are fully feathered (~8 weeks old), you must have the hand-feeding supplies on hand, such as formula, syringes, thermometers, and all of the supplements required to add to the formula in case something goes wrong, etc., and you must be available to feed the babies starting out EVERY 2 HOURS, INCLUDING OVERNIGHT, FOR THE FIRST 2 WEEKS, THEN EVERY 3-4 HOURS UP UNTIL 4 WEEKS OLD, INCLUDING OVERNIGHT...only at 4 weeks old can the babies go longer than 6 hours without eating, and at 4 weeks old it's still every 4-5 hours, and so on. It's exhausting, and it's also heartbreaking because a clutch of 7 babies can turn into a clutch of 1 very quickly due to 100 different reasons.

 

[bingbing]

My bird bing bing has one of those fuzzy tent's he sleeps in it at night on his back in there crashed it's super cute, but too stay on topic he has a thing he does that is similar I call it banging his tent lol. He will be in the upper top outside of the tent grinding on the corner of it. I kind of just let him do his thing since it's in his own cage. Is that the wrong thing to do no sooner than I thought he out grew it he just went and did it again lol.

 

[EllenD]

My bird bing bing has one of those fuzzy tent's he sleeps in it at night on his back in there crashed it's super cute, but too stay on topic he has a thing he does that is similar I call it banging his tent lol. He will be in the upper top outside of the tent grinding on the corner of it. I kind of just let him do his thing since it's in his own cage. Is that the wrong thing to do no sooner than I thought he out grew it he just went and did it again lol.

If he's a male and it's not causing any aggressive behavior in him, then it's up to you whether you just want to let him continue to do it. He won't "outgrow" it, it's hormonal behavior, he's masterbating, and that obviously isn't something he'll "outgrow", lol...With males there is no risk of constant laying of infertile eggs that can be hazardous to their health, so you don't have the same risk of that happening as you do with a female. However, sometimes if males become too hormonal they can really become aggressive and mean, or they can also switch their affections to you, trying to masterbate on you, and when that doesn't work-out they can become very frustrated...So you can either just let him do his thing, or you can discourage it, that's up to you.

 

[bingbing]

I am not sure if he is male to be honest, but he is occasionally aggressive but not uncontrollably. Example he lately will not stop biting at every ripple in my shirt but does it until he actually get's to a bite of me. I will have him step up and hang out on my finger a bit but soon that's boring and I give in to allowing him shoulder time which soon results in the same behavior. I have been trying to earthquake him a bit when he does it and this works for a moment at best If I keep active with him he has no time for that but sitting still with him that's what I get. The other day I decided to take him to the cage but leave it open and he immediately banged the tent lol. Bird psychology
needed. I am not trying to hijack this thread by the way just found it to be similar to my experience.

 

[LordTriggs]

honestly even without hormonal behavior I would remove the tent, those things are horrific death traps waiting to happen, plus you will almost certainly find that he stops being as hormonal without the tent, they give the same signals off that a nest box does

 

[clark_conure]

ehhhhhh
my male does this too, just for seconds at a time but it mightbe more for attention seaking behavior, he stops on his own looking at me....

That or he's asking me to finish for him which....no

 

[Sunnyclover]

ehhhhhh
my male does this too, just for seconds at a time but it mightbe more for attention seaking behavior, he stops on his own looking at me....

That or he's asking me to finish for him which....no

Do you know for sure he's a male?

 

[bingbing]

If you could please explain how the tent is a death trap I would appreciate it. The only time he goes in it is at bed time at which time he goes up and I have a rope perch leading too it next thing you know he's crashed out on his back asleep in it, his little feet hang out the end he loves it. It is his bed.

 

[LordTriggs]

If you could please explain how the tent is a death trap I would appreciate it. The only time he goes in it is at bed time at which time he goes up and I have a rope perch leading too it next thing you know he's crashed out on his back asleep in it, his little feet hang out the end he loves it. It is his bed.

there have been hundreds if not thousands of stories of birds dying to these tents. Even when it looks like they don't use them. Some birds chew their tents and ingest the fibers blocking their crop so they can't eat, others pull up a thread from the stitching and get their leg caught and freak out resulting in loss of their foot at best or can die from the panic of it, others get the thread caught around their neck and hang themselves. There's even one I read of who chewed a hole in the lining and crawled inside the tent got trapped and died that way (either by overheating or getting tangled)

They've been attributed to so many parrot deaths that there are multitudes of petitions going around at any time to get them banned but they never come to fruition.