What is Chubby doing?!

[Chubby The Amazon]

This is the only way I can seem to upload a video. I can’t seem to directly upload it to the forum from my phone.
I wanted to know what Chubby is doing?
Does anyone else’s Amazon parrot do this? Is this a sexual thing or is he just happy & playing.

 

[texsize]

Hormones.
definitely mating behavior.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Hormones.
definitely mating behavior.

My female budgie does something very similar with smaller balls but with more "enthusiam".

 

[Chubby The Amazon]

Hormones.
definitely mating behavior.

Oh Jeeze. This whole time I just thought he was having the time of his life playing around!


Well, I guess maybe he was! 😳

 

[Chubby The Amazon]

My female budgie does something very similar with smaller balls but with more "enthusiam".

Oh! I was really hoping it wasn’t mating behavior. I was worried that he would consider me a mate. I know it can cause issues in our bond later down the road when he wants to mate … but obviously that’s not happening.

I didn’t realize when I got him that “tickles” on belly & under wings is mating behavior until my vet told me I should stop.
lol I’ve stopped.
This behavior is self-initiated & is at random times.
I’ll probably send the video to my vet as well to confirm what the heck he is up to.

 

[wrench13]

Yup, mating behavior. THe 'clucking ' is the telling point. Salty sounds like some kinda chicken when he starts clucking.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Yup, mating behavior. THe 'clucking ' is the telling point. Salty sounds like some kinda chicken when he starts clucking.

Chubby Chicken!

 

[Botsari]

One of the things that is interesting about mating/hormonal behavior is there are parts of it that harken back to baby behavior. If you are at all familiar with that in birds it is really obvious when you see it. This more or less goes across species. In nearly all species of birds, from parrots to wild baby blue jays there are two displays the babies do to get attention - they have a plantive, repetitive whine, and they also have a physical display where they repeatedly flick their wings without unfolding/extending them, often while leaning forward but with their heads held up. A remnant of the plaintive whine and even a little of the wing flipping is visible in your video, though it’s pretty subtle here. In the nest this is signaling “feed me first”, etc. It is weird, but both of these show up, though transformed, in hormonal behavior. Later on the same, or very similar displays have a … um … different interpretation. More like “mount me first”. It’s easily identifiable if you ever spent hours taking care of and feeding baby birds. Even when the hormonal behavior gets very complicated, like in a bower bird building an elaborate nest those two are still present in the birds basic entreaties to a potential mate. I guess maybe this is present even in humans - we do sometimes call our significant others “baby”, etc. Best not to think about the analogies so close to home. 😂