IndianRingNeck.com

Hi All,

My name is Lillian Cooperman and my 8 year old lutino ringneck Lali and I have just joined your group. I am having some ongoing behavioral problems with her and wondered if anyone might have suggestions.

Lali has been with my since she was 6 months old and has lived with myself, my two dogs, my quaker, and my lovebird. She eats pellets, fruits and vegetables, and some nuts and seeds as treats. The cages are in the sunny living room area.

For years now and increasingly so and especially in the spring and the summer Lali has hormonal issues. She pulls the paper from under the bottom of the grate and tries to shred it for nesting, she screams an awful lot, she has started increasingly "humping" things, and constantly exhibits a mating posture and goes into a trance. These behaviors are all directed at me and happen all the time even when I am not looking at her. I ignore her and look away when she does these things, which basically means all the time.

She has been on Lupron and Clormiprimine, which have not really seemed to help. I have taken her off as she has gained weight and has a patch of feathers around her neck that never grows back now and she may be secretly plucking. I have tried toys, foraging stuff and moving the cage. I am an acupuncturist and have treated her limitedly and have tried some chamomile and now pulsatilla homeopathically.

I don't know what else to do. The avian vets don't seem to know much beyond the meds and basic behavioral stuff. I have been told Ringnecks are just that way and there is nothing I can do. I just want my Lali and my other birds (both girls) and dogs and myself to lead a more peaceful life together. Can anyone offer any suggestions? When does the hormonal thing start to decline? Thank you all for reading. Lillian

My IRN "decorates" everything with regurgitated food for me> YUM He goes through this for a couple months ( now till about May) My vet has no answers, just deal with it, he says. He screams, does the "mating" dance for me and has loved my shoes (if you know what I mean) I just accept it and he gets out of the phase soon enough. Sorry Im not much help am I ?

Unfortunately, this is one of the side effects of some birds and socialisation that I have seen.

You get the vast majority of parrots, who with the right rearing and owner, are your regular, lovely bird. You get those few birds who dont take to people too well, and regardless of your efforts, a very small fraction just dont want to be a pet.

Your bird seems to be on the other side of the spectrum. I would not be suprised if it didnt even know that another Indian Ringneck was the same species as it. I had a hen whome after rearing, was infatuated by me. Every time i got within 10m of it, it would cluck and desperately try to get me over there as if I was its partner. She wouldnt breed for me as she was too busy trying to get my interests. I had to place her with a friend and one of his birds in order to get her to breed. She was not a pet, as she was quite a bity girl, and hated people.

By the sounds of it, your bird is just truely and utterly bonded with you, and is confused to say the least. This does not mean your bird is less happy than another bird, or that its life is any less rewarding.

This is not a trait that ringnecks hold regularly, nor uniquely, sadly some people get the misconception that certain species have certain tendancies for problems or issues on their past experiences.

I guess you have tried the whole specific bird room idea? As a means of completely being able to dissasociate yourself from the bird at times.

There is no real age that a truely tamed pet bird might lose these habbits, as these are generally beyond hormonal, and lean more towards the psychological, certain times of the year (breeding time) can heighten these states of mind as well, reinforcing them with the natural drive to mate.

Unfortunately I dont think I can offer you more than your doing. A few key things I always like to know that a bird gets is this:

Sunlight (or UV-A and UV-B derived from a pet specific light source).
Minerals and Vitamins
Large variety of food for mental stimulation
Large variety of play time stimulus (solid self time, solid human time) that is ballanced between the other animals if the bird can see you socialise with another pet, it will feel it should be getting the same.. if not more attention.

I think you are doing all that fine already, except possibly light. This is something I can safely say 75% of bird owners dont realise they are not providing.

A simple thin pane of glass, the window, can cut down the UV by up to 60-80% depending on materials. Its a suprising whack of difference compared to the real thing.

Birds require a fair whack of sunlight or equivilant light. This has an impact on calcium and potassium in the bird, and these things have been regularly linked to psychological ballance.

It could very well be that some or none of these factors can help. I am not vet, and I will admit I have limited access to experience with birds like this bar one bird, to which became a perfectly normal breeding bird once I was taken out of the picture. (keep in mind this was a young bird).