OK, so my new Senegal parrot Shamus is hanging out on my shoulder. Trying to pick at my teeth.
Now, I practice good oral hygiene, so there is no food there for him to get at.
I had a cockatiel a few years back that did the same thing. Apparently, this is common parrot behavior.
Why?
We are talking about a behavior that involves a prey animal sticking its head into a large carnivore’s mouth (at least in my case). I mean, I know I am a well-behaved pet carnivore, but still, you’d think that a bird would have an instinctive aversion to doing this.
What gives here? Why do parrots try to pick at their pet humans’ teeth?
Senegals are cute little birds. My thoughts on this behavior are without cites, but I have bred and hand raised a number of psittacine species. Courtship between birds involves feeding each other…kinda mouth to mouth behaviour. Also, birds like Senegals (alutricial species) are fed by adults who regurgitate food into the babies mouth.
If your bird was hand fed by a human, it may retain some behaviors. For instance, you manipulating the oral commisures (corners of the mouth) may stimulate feeding behavior (thrusting the head up and down).
Basically, oral-oral contact can be breeding/courtship/feeding/bonding behaviour.
It’s not just parrots. We used to have a pet Peking duck that would stick her head in my uncle’s mouth and clean his teeth while he sat on the couch watching football. Damndest thing I ever saw. Then again, this was the same duck that enjoying eating fried chicken :eek: so go figure.
Shamus was, in fact, a hand-fed baby. I bought him from the breeder who raised him. Apparently, if he hadn’t taken to me the way he did, she would have refused to sell him to me- he’s nearly a year old and the former pet human was quite attached to him.
He’s a bit young for breeding/courship, so I’ll go for bonding.
In addition to the bonding thing, I also suspect there’s some curiosity there. After all, birds don’t have teeth, they’re these interesting alien objects.
Most of birds have had an inordinate interest in ears as well, and since they don’t have external fleshy bits at all that has to be pretty much pure curiosity.
And if they see you eat, they know where the food goes so maybe they’re hoping a tidbit got left behind. And, uh, oh yeah, they love you, too.
Don’t be fooled by his/her young age! Hand fed birds mature more quickly than wild caught individuals. I have seen year old Senegal parrots nesting. However, I agree that bonding behaviour is most likely.