Chewing on my hair

[Annageckos]

My GCC Ziva has started chewing on my hair, which is pretty long. I do try to discourage her. But tonight I had her step up while she was chewing and actually pulled a couple of stands of hair that were in her beak and down her throat a little. She also pulls and chews on loose threads and strings. Now I am worried she has swallowed some of my hair. Does anyone else have this problem? How have you dealt with it? For now I am not letting her on my shoulder. She has a ton of toys that I switch out often. But she isn't big on chewing toys.

 

[JasmineGCC]

It sounds like she is preening you. My GCC Jasmine preens my hair all the time - she never eats it and her favourite toy is her string toy which she preens. Unless your bird starts to break/chew your hair then I think it's harmless. Jasmine makes happy chirping sounds when she preens my hair

 

[hacatta]

All my fids to this to me,i never seen them eating it.
She is preening you, i'ts a high form of affection for them.
I think you shouldn't discourage her but observing at least for a while to see if she is swallowing.
I know that if i try to push one of my fids away when they are preening me they start to get angry like i am rejecting them.

 

[Annageckos]

What worried me was that I pulled about three inches of my hair out of her beak. My boyfriend Brian told me that he had to pull a string from her that she was chewing on. I don't know if she is swallowing them or not. This is a recent thing, I guess I will keep an eye on her and see if I can tell what she is doing. She loves picking at hairs, pulling arm hairs is so much fun for her.

 

[MonicaMc]

You may need to restrict her access to rope like things.


I'm finding that I have to do this with Jayde as she will destroy rope items! If a toy is threaded with rope but has cardboard and wood on it, she'll chew the rope! I've been having to re-hang certain toys, or if I can't rehang them, toss them aside until I can figure out what to do with them! If I end up having to remove rope and redo new toys with chain or something else, it's going to be kind of annoying! LOL


She loves messing with my hair as well, but I haven't noticed her eating it.