She's gorgeous!
A little late to this party, but female ekkies are amazing. They get a bum rap a lot of the time for being vicious and such, but that's just because a lot of people don't get how different they are from their male counterparts. Not worse. Not better. Just different.
In the wild, the beautiful ladies are the nest's defenders. They take up residence and defend their tree hollow to the death from threats ranging from snakes to cockatoos. So their instinct to defend the nest is strong! And as you might imagine, such a mindset might lead to behavior that would come across as stubborn. But once you understand their mindsets and learn not to trip their hardwired 'go-time' type defenses, you wind up enjoying all of their loving characteristics. And a more potentially loyal and loving bird you'd be hard-pressed to find.
In my experience with my resident ekkie diva, Maya, she communicates. A lot. And expects to be understood. Now, I don't mean verbally. (Though she has fooled me on occasion by mimicking my wife's voice when she talks.) I mean with body language. And unfortunately, ekkie body language isn't as obvious and demonstrative as a cockatoo's or an amazon's. You have to play closer attention. Maya doesn't have a lot of patience for missed cues, but once she saw that I was picking up on what she was trying to say, our relationship became a lot more bonded.
A few tips: Keep her away from anything that will put her in a nesting state of mind. Don't let her under couches or beds. Don't let her play underneath the covers, no matter how cute and fun it might seem. It'll be cute until it's not, and you don't want to be competing with those hormones.
No petting the back, under the wings, by the base of the tail, or (obviously) around the groin area. All of these are places that stimulate hormonal responses, and will trigger a completely different side of your sweet lady ekkie.
Always pet 'with the grain' of their feathers. Eclectus feathers are VERY different from those of other parrots. As such, you will rarely find an ekkie who enjoys the back and forth rubbing of the typical scritching. Keep the petting one-directional. Long as I follow that rule, my ekkies enjoy being petted. Maya more so than Jolly. Jolly only likes being petted in spurts of maybe five seconds or so. Maya will settle in more for a good head rub.
Keep their minds stimulated. Eclectus parrots are highly intelligent. So keeping their minds engaged with new tricks and such will make for happier birds.
And finally, exercise. I keep a flighted household, so to the extent I can, this takes the form of flight drills and flying tricks like fetch. Unfortunately, this only works for Jolly. Maya never got the chance to fledge before going to her prior home, and has rebuffed any efforts on my part to get her to fly. (Thus far) So for her, I encourage a lot of activities that have her running all about her tree stand. Like fetch or targeting. I also used to roughhouse with her a bit, hand-wrestling and such, but I soon discovered that she quickly becomes over-stimulated by such play. So, for my own safety and the integrity of my fingers, I took that one out of rotation. Lol!
I hope this is along the lines of what you were looking for. Post away if you have any specific questions. And good luck with your sweet baby girl!
. I mean it positively.
hopefully we can understand each other well, sheās still in the sweet baby mode when I visit her, Iāll probably have her with me in a few weeks so the fun will begin then
