Angry, Lusty Cockatiel

[junglejake]

I have two cockatiels, a male gray cockatiel and a male whiteface cockatiel. I got them both from a former coworker who discovered he was allergic to them. That was his and his lady-friend's first experience with birds, so they made some mistakes raising them, but nothing insurmountable. Unfortunately, Doc was a pet shop bird, so he displays abused behaviors, and is _very_ afraid of unfamiliar hands, which, as you probably know, translates into some fierce biting. Wyatt is a cuddly breeder bird, who is super friendly, but also has deformed feet which makes it hard for him to perch and be agile (this will be relevant soon).

I had them for about a year when Doc started developing a crush on Wyatt. I didn't recognize what was happening until it was too late, and doc had become obsessed with Wyatt. Doc will start to flirt with Wyatt - at first, Wyatt would just sing back and interact with him as birds normally do, until Doc decided to have his way with Wyatt the first time, which really freaked Wyatt out. After that, Doc's wings would get half cocked and he'd start doing a cockatiel flirty-call, and Wyatt would get *MAD* and go after him. Doc never got the clue, and kept pursuing Wyatt. When they were out and I wasn't looking, Doc would try mounting Wyatt, Wyatt would scream, fly over to me, with Doc trailing him in a hyper violent mood, typically drawing blood from myself and sometimes Wyatt before I could corral him and get him back in his cage. Sadly, this is common behavior for cockatiels who develop crushes on things that don't return that affection. I've only read about it happening with stuffed animals or pillows or something, so I've not really had any lessons other folks have learned to try to help the little buddy get over his lost love, but the general consensus was to remove the object of their affection.

So I let my sister hang onto Wyatt for a few months (we were raised with cockatiels, so we both are pretty good with handling/training them), and Doc got back to his fairly friendly self. Never big on letting me pet/preen him, but any time I was home, he wanted to be on my shoulder. Playing games in VR was awkward at first, but Doc started paying attention to the screen and flying around whenever he needed to, then landing right back on my shoulder -- it was really cute!

My sister wasn't able to care for Wyatt anymore, so I ran over to her to pick him up, and brought him back to Doc. Day 1 was like the old days, they could both be out, they were friendly with one another, and had a good time. Day two, Doc decided to try mounting Wyatt again, and within a couple of hours he was his crazed self again

So I'm wondering if any of y'all have any advice for how to break Doc of his Wyatt habit.

They don't do well separated -- Doc is screaming bloody murder if I move his cage more than 6 inches away from Wyatt's, and Wyatt screams if he ever can't see Doc, so separating them is not something I can do -- I tried for a day -- left them screaming, got back home to the same screaming and a note from a neighbor, so I gave up on that option. Looking for others!

 

[LaManuka]

Wow junglejake sounds like you’ve got your hands full there!

My first thought is are you sure both birds are male? Your situation sounds a lot like an issue i had some years back when I my male cockatiel Fang got EXTREMELY possessive and aggressive over my then female Twinkle. Fang would go from seemingly docile and quiet to madly attacking Twinkle plus anyone who tried to intervene in the blink of an eye and we would have to cage Twinkle for her own safety! We ended up getting Twinkle a hormonal implant which lessened her making any kind of “come-hither” displays at Fang and that worked pretty well.

Are you able to post any pictures of your birds? Have a look at the underside of Wyatt’s tail feathers and if you see any stippling/rippled colouration that’s a good indicator of a female cockatiel. My Twinkle was an albino and you could barely see the stippling on her tail but if I held a feather up to the sunlight it was definitely there.

If indeed you have two males then it may be a case of two birds who simply do not get along and they may need to have separate time out of the cage for safety’s sake. I hope you are able to find a solution that works for everyone!

 

[Squeekmouse]

Tough situation! I don't have cockateils and I don't have any experience with this sort of thing, exactly, but I'll offer what I can. I freely admit this stuff comes directly from other articles I've found. I'm not this eloquent and knowledgeable about the subject.

Sometimes, changing the environment of a hormonally charged bird lessens or eliminates sexual behavior. The change can be as simple as moving the bird cages from one location to another or rotating the cages. Also, make sure that your cockatiel does not have any locations, in or out of the cage, that duplicate nesting conditions, such as any small, dark, snugly area. This includes the darkened area under a low feeding dish. That type of environment tells the bird’s body that nesting is a possibility and might increase hormonal production and nesting behavior. This goes for female cockatiels, too.

Occupy your cockatiel’s time with activities to divert his attention from his mate/nesting obsession and other “bad” behavior. New bird toys, food and interactions with you can make life so interesting that he no longer pays attention to his misplaced amorous feelings. Remove bird toys that your bird acts out with through masturbation.

Teach your cockatiel new whistles, words, games or behaviors. Sometimes, just talking differently to your bird shifts the bird’s focus onto other things. Talk to him as you go about your chores, explaining each activity. Or take him for a ride in the car. Make sure that he has a comfortable carrier that it is partially covered so he can manage his visual stress levels by moving in and out of the covered area.

Avoid snuggling your cockatiel too closely. When my birds are hormonal, I snuggle their heads and kiss them, but I do not snuggle their backs. This prevents the stimulation of the bird’s nether areas, if you get my drift.

Make a point to walk away when your cockatiel wants to engage in amorous behavior. Take care not to “reward” negative behavior by giving him “good” or “bad” attention during those times. If he’s biting, use hand-held bird perches to handle him until he cools off.

Manipulating the photoperiod, aka the long nights treatment. This is by far the most effective technique, and in many cases will be the only one that’s needed. The longer days of spring and summer are a major breeding trigger, since they provide favorable conditions for food plants to grow and extra daylight hours for the parent birds to collect food for the babies. It can seem like spring all the time in our homes, since we have electric “sunlight” when it’s dark outside and pleasant indoor temperatures all year long. But we have the power to make it seem like night when it’s actually light outside, and trick our birds’ bodies into thinking that it’s winter and therefore not a good time to breed.

To do this, we make sure that our birds get 12 to 14 hours of uninterrupted darkness every night for at least a week. It doesn’t have to be pitch black but it does have to be dark enough to seem like night. Any light in the sleeping area shouldn’t be brighter than the light of a full moon; it’s OK to have a small night light. It's desirable for it to be quiet too, but darkness is more important than quietness and it's OK if there's some noise. If you have a quiet, windowless room where the bird can sleep, that’s perfect; or you can put a heavy cover on the cage to make it dark inside. You can test the light-resistance of the cover by draping it over your own head. It won’t do any good to throw a light cover over the birdcage in a room that isn't dark; this might actually make things worse, since the shadowy light coming through the cover will simulate conditions inside a nestbox rather than the night-time conditions that you want.

Once you’ve found a suitable location and/or cover, you are now in control of when “sunset” and “sunrise” occur. Follow a fairly regular schedule of 10-12 hours of light followed by 12-14 hours of darkness. In the beginning it will seem like it isn’t working because the hormonal behavior isn’t changing, but after about a week there will be a sudden dramatic reduction in breeding behavior. Once the change has kicked in you can discontinue the long nights if you want to, but be aware that hormone levels might start rising again if you allow longer days.

If a bird doesn’t respond to the long nights treatment it may respond to three or more days of nonstop bright light, or to reversing day and night by having bright lights when it’s dark outside and darkness when it’s light outside. I don’t know the biological reason for this result, but I would guess that the bird’s body is so confused that making babies doesn’t seem like a good idea.

One of the easiest remedies to derail reproductive drives is also one of the most powerful. Shredding of paper, cardboard or other bedding material seems to mimic the intrinsic behaviors of nest preparation. Typically regarded as benign, playful activity, shredding instead seems capable of initiating the cascade of hormones that directs reproductive behaviors. As most cages are equipped with grates that prevent access to the cage floor, this behavior is usually easy to control. In cases where a grate is not provided, all liners can be removed and the cage tray simply rinsed daily. In many cases this behavior is one of the earliest warning signs of hormonal behavior. Preventing access to shreddable substrate will usually quickly defuse a hormonal drive.

Be careful about how you touch the bird. Head scritches are usually OK, but do NOT pet a hen on the back because this is sexually stimulating – it feels vaguely like a male standing on her back for copulation. There are some sources that recommend not touching males on the back as well, but it isn’t as directly sexual for males so you can get away with more of it with them. The male and female rub their vents together during copulation so you shouldn’t touch either sex in this area – not that most people would want to!


Others here might have other advice... but I hope this helps a bit... If nothing else, I bumped the thread!

Good luck!!!

 

[junglejake]

Thanks for the replies!

LaManuka, I am running into technical issues trying to upload a pic of Wyatt, but he's a whiteface cockatiel with a VERY white face (pics of females show encroaching gray with the white feathers, similar to how a female looks in a regular gray, but without the yellow/orange), so I'm fairly confident he's male. There's also no striping on his tail.

Squeekmouse, the touching the back thing I know about, and the only time I ever touch their backs is if they're panicked or extremely flighty when I'm putting them back in their cages to prevent them from flying. They really don't like this (and it's rare that it's necessary), so I'm hoping that's not going to transfer Doc's affection to me.

Everything started happening after Wyatt chewed his way into a shoebox in my closet, and both of them would "play" in there. I didn't realize how much of a problem it was until reading about it, so I suspect that's why Doc's relationship with Wyatt changed in his mind. Now, they can only go in open spaces.

Now that Doc is generally a cage bird, I moved him into the large cage both birds used to share before being downgraded into a smaller version in their own cages. I also travel with them multiple times a year to a cabin 6 hours away (they really seem to love driving), but Doc's behavior remains the same throughout the whole process.

I've certainly noticed that whistling to Doc will pull him away from Wyatt briefly, but then Wyatt seems to get jealous that Doc is getting attention from me and pulls Doc's attention back to himself when trying to get me to pay attention to him again.

The day/night cycle is interesting, though. I don't normally cover them (they're normally in my bedroom, and remain silent until they see my eyes open, at which point the singing begins), but I think I'm going to try making their nights 14 hours for a week and see what happens.

Several others have recommended the hormone treatment, too, so that might be an option to try, if the new cycle doesn't help.

Thanks, y'all!