Beak rubbing

[Kaitlynandjason]

Okay so my Chappo has defiantly gotten over his little mean streak..i think it had a lot to do with ensuring he got a good night sleep every night.. anyway.. now he is acting super lovey with me..always rubbing his beak on me.. what does that mean ????? Is that a behaviour I should not allow ????.. he's also regurgitating his food to me... it's so hard because after him being a mean bird for like a month n now being sweet again I feel bad not allowing it...but I want to know what's best for him

 

[SailBoat]

This is part of a mating pattern! You can work at moving the Parrot when this happens - like a ten minute 'time out!'

With the sleep in place, start working at limiting this new pattern. First look for the pattern that leads to the regurgitating. Stop this pattern as early as possible.

 

[GaleriaGila]

Or be like me and let him have his way. He'll wreck your life for the next ?? years.

KIDDING! Do what Mr. Boats said!

 

[Anansi]

I'd say beak rubbing is okay... to a point. You'll know it if it starts feeling a bit too... vigorous and intense. At that point, you know he needs a moment to compose himself. And if he's regurgitating for you, yes, you might want to let him cool foo for a minute.

Here's the important thing, though. This is just a natural behavior, not to be confused, on his part, with a "bad" behavior. As such, you don't want your reaction to this to resemble, say, a timeout given for biting or flying to a place that has been deemed off-limits. Personally, I differentiated the two by placing my ekkies on a nearby tree stand or something when they got too worked up. Never back to the cage. This, of course, was a bit more of a challenge with Jolly since he is comfortable with flying and Maya only does so if she suspects impending death. But even so, I would put him on his tree stand and, whenever his stay put conditioning would falter, I would simply keep putting him back until he calmed down.

Another way to deal with it is diversion. Simply channel that raunchy energy into some flight drills, targeting, or any other kind of vigorous training. A tired bird is rarely an amorous one.