Female Breeding Behavior? Please help identify...

[superfrank]

I have a 2 1/2 year old female IRN which I adopted this past November. Recently, she has been demonstrating some strange new behaviors which I have been told were due to hormones.

-She has formed an extremely close bond with my boyfriend. She has always been slightly more comfortable around him (her first owner was a man as well) but over the last couple weeks, I will receive serious bites if I interact with either of them while they're together EXCEPT she wants to be petted CONSTANTLY, and will let me pet her as long as my boyfriend is there.
-When she sees my boyfriend her head immediately tilts back, exposing her throat to him and makes a funny clucking sound.
-She seems to absolutely hate me all of a sudden. I get severe, bloody bites to the hands, ears and face for no reason
-She has decided that random areas of the house belong to her and she defends them like crazy. God forbid I sit at my kitchen table.
-She will not take a bath


She is not displaying any typical hormonal behavior (regurgitating, nesting, humping, dancing etc)


To rectify the situation, we have removed ALL contact with my boyfriend. He doesn't tickle, talk, look at or feed her. Her only interactions are with me and I am extra EXTRA nice to her. We talk, have treats, do "step-up" ladder and relax for about 15 minutes (or until she bites) then she goes into her playhouse while I cook, clean etc, then she comes out for another 15 minutes. She is getting extra sleep, no petting and is still enjoying an all veggie & fruit diet.

Please help! My sweet little bird has turned into a monster! How long do these hormonal phases last?

[ellieelectrons]

Hi Superfrank

I empathise with you my friend! Your experiences are very similar those I had last year when our bird Janey was in nesting mode.

See http://www.indianringneck.com/forum/vie ... =2&t=14905

I think you should find the tips people gave me in that thread useful for you too, so check it out.

Some additional suggestions I have for you:
- remove all fruit & sugary veg from her diet. My vet has told me to significantly reduce these all year round in the hopes she won't go into breeding mode this coming season - we'll see if it works! My understanding is that having a plentiful diet in the wild makes the birds think that breeding is a good idea because it will be possible to feed the babies... so reducing diet especially sugary foods may help reduce these breeding behaviours.
- regarding the biting: I think there is most likely some trigger for it.

For example, my husband got bitten when he opened a cupboard she had a nesting interest in. When I urgently needed to get Janey away from the washing machine so she wouldn't chew through the cable, the only thing that worked for me was opening the linen cupboard which she also had a nesting interest in. She flew at me and started to hoe into my hand over and over again... I knew she would do it but I figured it was better that than her chewing through the electrical cable again.

Try to figure out the triggers, and you should be able to avoid some of those bites by avoiding the triggers. The triggers won't make sense to you, but they will make sense to the bird! My husband figured out some of them before I did.

The other thing I noticed with the biting was that it seemed extremely instinctual - it's like there's the "wild bird Janey" and the "pet bird Janey". I noticed that when she was being the wild bird Janey and was going crazy biting my hand, sometimes if I moved my arm a little to put her off-balance, it was like she'd come out of the "wild bird Janey" mode and stop what she was doing - it was kind of like her going out of a trance. Maybe that will work for you too.




Of course the other things to consider and decide are whether to get her a mate and whether to give her a nest box. My situation was slightly different because she did have a mate. I don't know whether it's a good idea to give single female birds a nestbox or not. Some others might be able to shed some light there.

Best wishes!


Ellie.