Do and Don'ts of 1st hormonal?

[Boki]

My 11-12 month conure has almost completed the major molt with red diamonds almost completely covering her head. I have noticed some strange behaviors that make think she is starting the hormone thing.

She will sit in the bottom of an empty food bowl and rub her bottom around. I also have a wooden U shaped napkin holder and she seemed too happy fitting her body in the tight squeeze. She never did this before and she has quite a look of pleasure in it.

My questions are as follows:

Do I interact with her normal with her climbing on my shoulder or do I keep my distance? Yesterday she started going for my ear twice and we already had established that was a no no. We did that ear is off limits early on 4 months ago.

She tries to hide in some of her rope toys. Should I just leave perches in her home cage?

There is a cuttlebone toy that she seems to nibble at more now than before. Do I change her diet with more calcium? Maybe small nibbles of cheese?

She definitely is more into the music than before, especially the faster rock. She does a lot of head bobbing. I assume that music to excite her is OK. Before, I found her liking the softer mellow music more.

Any other do and don'ts I should consider?

 

[IndySE]

Don't touch her anywhere outside her head, and if that seems to be inspiring some less-than-savory behaviors, then stop doing that. Be mindful of her on your shoulder, because snuggling in your hair or against your neck could be perceived as nesting.

Try to remove toys that seem to be inspiring the behavior as well. And constantly rotate in new toys to distract her.

The cuttlebone should be sufficient for calcium, but some really healthy calcium-rich foods you could try is kale and plain greek yogurt. The plain greek yogurt will be much better for her than cheese.

& yes, music is good. You could use it to distract her if she's getting too amorous.

 

[EllenD]

Yes, she is going through puberty right now (happens when they are around 1 year-old, give or take a month or two, so she's right in the middle of it)...The things that she has been doing are masturbating in-regards to the bottom of the bowl, and in-regards to "getting inside of her rope toy" this is nesting-behavior and it needs to be removed immediately and not put back in if she can actually "get inside" of it...

The main thing you need to worry about when you have a female parrot who has gone through puberty and has things that are triggering her hormones and putting her into "Breeding-Season" (naturally this happens in the Spring, right now, and then again usually some time in the Fall), is that hormonal-behavior in female parrots triggers the formation of Follicles and then Eggs, and then obviously they start laying the Eggs, and this can easily and quickly become chronic and continual, which not only puts enormous strain on her body as far as physical-energy, causing malnutrition, nutritional-deficiencies, weight-loss, loss of bone-density, etc., but most-seriously because every single Egg she forms puts her at-risk for becoming Egg-Bound, which is pretty-much 100% fatal without immediately medical-intervention. So you need to do everything you can to eliminate any and all "Hormonal-Triggers" from her environment (inside of her cage and outside of her cage in the house), in the way you touch her/handle her, the food you give her, etc.

#1)Avoid Touching Her Anywhere On Her Body Except For Her Head, Face, Back of Her Neck, and Under Her Chin. You do not have to stop letting her on your shoulder, or sitting on your head, or on your leg, etc. You don't want to approach this hormonal thing as if she's now all of sudden "hands-off", because it's unnecessary and you can end-up losing any trust you've earned from her and lose your bond with her...That's not necessary...Sitting on your hsoulder is perfectly fine, HOWEVER is any of your birds bite you while they are sitting on your shoulder, then they should immediately be put right down on the floor and ignored, and not allowed back-up onto your shoulder until they earn that priviledge again. This has nothing to do with hormones at all, this has to do with safety and bad behavior...Don't yell or scold at her, just tell her "No Bites" in a normal voice and immediately put her right down on the floor, where they hate to be, and then the shoulder is off-limits until she again proves that she can sit on your shoulder without biting you. You DO However need to avoid touching her (or any other bird) on her back, her wings, under the wings/on her sides, anywhere on her chest/belly, on her legs, her tail, or anywhere near her Vent. So keep the petting and the scratches to her Head, Face, Neck, and under her Chin, and you'll be okay...

#2)REMOVE ANY AND ALL ITEMS FROM HER CAGE THAT CREATE A SMALL, DARK PLACE THAT SHE CAN GET INSIDE OF OR UNDERNEATH!!! This is a HUGE one, for both males and females, all birds, because getting inside/underneath things that give them a little, private, dark place is serving as a kind of "nest", and immediately puts their hormones into high-gear...And unfortunately pet stores sell all kinds of Beds, Huts, Tents, Hammocks, Boxes, etc. that are supposed to be specifically for pet birds to sleep in, to play in/under, etc., and they are ALL very large hormonal-triggers, and some of them (the "Happy/Snuggle Huts" they sell for birds to go inside and sleep in) are actually killing thousands of birds, specifically all species of Conures, all over the world, due to other reasons all together and need to be thrown away immediately...So if she has ANYTHING like a Hut, Tent, Box, Bed/Triangle Bird Bed, Hammock, etc. inside of her cage, REMOVE IT AND NEVER PUT IT BACK IN AGAIN...And if she has access to anything outside of her cage that she can get inside of or underneath, such as underneath or behind furniture, in corners of the room, behind pillows on the couch, chairs, bed, etc., underneath blankets or towels, UNDER YOUR SHIRT OR INSIDE OF YOU HOOD TO "CUDDLE", etc., that needs to stop right now as well...

#3)Do Not Feed Her Any Warm, Mushy Foods. This is pretty easy to figure out the "Why" behind it...Any warm, mushy foods like Oatmeal, Grits, Mashed Potatoes, etc. resemble what their mothers/fathers fed them and what hand-feeding formula resembles. Just avoid any foods of this type.

#4)Do Not Ever Put Any Type of "Nesting-Materials" in the Bottom of Her Cage. "Nesting-Materials" mean anything that could be seen-as or used-as nesting-materials, and there are also health concerns with putting anything like this in the bottom fo their cages anyway, like them eating pieces of it and developing a lethal Bowel-Obstruction, a blockage in their Crops, Poisoning, etc. The only thing that you shoud EVER have in the bottom of your pet parrot's cage are sheets of clean Newspaper, Butcher-Paper, Bird-Cage Paper Liners, etc., and they need to be UNDERNEATH THE GRATE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE CAGE so that she can't get access to them in order to shred them up. So you NEVER want to put any types of animal/rodent beddings, wood-chips, mulch/bark chips, crushed walnut-shell bedding, corn-cob bedding, shredded-paper bedding, etc.

#5)Make Sure That She and ALL BIRDS Are Getting At Least 12-Hours of Sleep Every Night. Parrots in the wild follow a "Natural-Light Schedule" every single day, and this keeps their sex-hormones at-bay and is the reason why in the wild they only breed during the natural Breeding-Seasons instead of all year round. The reason why Parrots in-captivity/are pets are often hormonal and breed at any time of the year is because they are not at all on a Natural-Light Schedule but rather on a normal "Human" daily schedule, and because they typically don't get at least 12-hours of sleep every night. So the first thing you need to do is ensure that she's getting at least 12-hours of sleep every single night, regardless of what hours that happens during...And if you can put her on a Natural-Light Schedule every day, that will do even more to ensure that she's not hormonal and producing Eggs...A Natural-Light Schedule is simply the bird waking-up as the Sun starts to rise, and then the bird going to bed as the Sun starts to set; additionally, they should be in a room where there is a window, so that they can actually see that the Sunrise has started, and that the Sunset has started....The problem for a lot of people with this is because they live in an area where in the winter the Sunset starts around 4:40-5:00 in the afternoon, meaning their bird would have to be put to bed very early, and then they wouldn't ever see them, etc. So just making sure that she gets at least 12 hours of sleep every night will help...

As far as the Cuttlebone goes, yes, you definitely want her to have it for Calcium and Phosphorous, which can help to prevent any Eggs she might lay from being soft, which causes Egg-Binding, but you also want to get her an Avian Mineral-Block to provide all the other nutrients she needs to produce healthy Eggs/Follicles if she ever does, and to keep her bones nice and healthy as well, so that she doesn't become deficient in the future...