I have a male cockatiel that adopted me last summer (thread about that incident), and lately he’s been acting really weird. Though he’s an only bird, I think that he thinks he’s brooding.
He spends ALL DAY sitting on the floor of his cage, and flies out to attack anyone – human or canine – that wanders by. He bit my husband hard enough on the finger last night to draw blood, so he really means business. When he’s sitting, he’s always in the exact same spot, staying very still, and holds all his feces until after sunset. I’ve had the pleasure of getting some unbelievably huge droppings on me when he finally feels companionable at the end of the day. Yay.
I’ll talk to a vet if needed, but thought I’d check to see if any Doper bird owners have any advice.
So, do I need to talk to a vet?
Is he indeed brooding?
Should I allow this to continue, or intervene somehow?
If I intervene, what should I do?
I’ve taken away the mirror that he was sitting near, but that’s it. What else should I consider?
Yeah, but the avian vet sexed him as male. And from what I can find online about brooding behavior generally, he’s doing what the male birds do, i.e. sitting on the “nest” all day, and taking care of his own needs in the evening. The females take over for the night.
I think I will call the vet tomorrow. It must be stressful for the little guy to be on guard all day.
It’s funny that there isn’t even another bird in the house, let alone the mother of his children. Gotta love my weird little dude.
My bird (a small parrot), when he’s in a homemaking mood, will work on his nest project (destroy a cardboard box) for several hours on end, and only when he’s done for the time being will he step away from it a foot or so and poo (similarly huge to his morning first poo o’ the day)-- his cardboard projects are like the only place he won’t poo. And he’s very defensive of the project as well. And then the phase passes after a couple of weeks. So I don’t know if it has to do with eggs/brooding per se, but rather setting up for the possibility.
I’ve recently learned a LOT more than I even knew there was to learn about birds when I was adopted by a lovebird about 2 months ago (There was a thread MPSIMS.) I recommend this site
for info on stopping hormonal behavior. Boiled down it’s this:
Make sure they get 12-14 hours of dark a night (cover the cage or place it in a dark, quiet room).
Rearrange the cage frequently (move toys, perches, etc.)
Make sure there’s no good nesting spot in the cage.
No “inappropriate” touching (which can be different than you think).
Adjust their diet in the way suggested on the page.
If the bird is treating a specific person as their “mate”, have the other person do all “fun/good” things for the bird while the “mate” does all the “bad/unfun” things.
I’m housesitting / daughter minding at their place, and Micky the lovebird is acting pretty fiesty. He got me a good one last night while I was changing his seed and water. Not hard enough to draw blood. Anymore of that, and I’m bringing the pregnant not so feral anymore pussycat over.
Thanks, TroubleAgain, I will be diving into that site!
I’m wondering if the vet could have been wrong about. It wasn’t exactly a close examination from what I saw; she seemed to base it on Smalls’ coloring.
I’ll call the vet as soon as I can tonight, and will post pics along with my update on how it turns out.
I have a male cockatiel (and yes, I’m sure he’s male) that does the exact same thing, guarding a corner of his cage.
It’s hormones and the urge to breed - he’s staked out a nest spot and yes, he’s guarding it because his instincts are hoping for a random female to walk by and fall madly in love with him for his prowess at providing a great home.
It’s a great site. The author is a member of the parrot_lovers community on livejournal and she’s very knowledgeable. I got a lot of help from her site, especially on diet and biting (yipes!)
[edit]Hey, come join us over there. We trade pictures/tips/ask questions all the time. There are owners of just about every variety of parrot there, including several cockatiel owners.
