Dinosrawr
New member
- Aug 15, 2013
- 1,587
- 8
- Parrots
- Avery, a GCC born on March 5th, 2013 & Shiko, a blue IRN born on February 25th, 2014
Hey guys. It's been awhile since I've made my own post, but I'm at a loss for what to do. Avery is almost four years old now, and ever since she hit two she's been a hormonal wreck. There's never been a point in the past two years where I've felt she's "normal".
Of course I was expecting hormones and any of the not so lovely behaviours to go with it, but what I understood is that eventually there would be some down time where she'd calm down and go back to not wanting to rub herself silly or want to be a baby maker 24/7. Certain things have died down, like the aggression, though it does still exist.
I've done what I could in terms of environment - she has no where to nest, I've changed her toys constantly (at least 1-2 times a week), I've added different toy types, changed foods, stopped providing any warm chops or any high protein foods, I went from not covering her (which helped for a bit until it didn't) to covering her again, I never hold her over her back, and in fact I haven't even cuddled her for probably close to six months now. The main issue is that she doesn't use toys to touch herself, she uses her cage bars. If it were toys I would simply remove them over night (it's always night and morning when she's most hormonal), but it's not. I can't exactly not have her in her cage over night. She always gets 10-14 hours of darkness to sleep, so she definitely isn't on a spring/summer schedule either.
One of the only things I can think of doing to help at this point is 1) contacting my avian vet to see if there are any possible treatments to give her to help her dial down her hormones, or 2) completely eradicate any interactions with my male IRN.
I do think he contributes to it to a certain degree. He's hit sexual maturity, but has never actually appeared hormonal. He doesn't feed Avery (I don't allow it), he doesn't try and mate with toys, and he certainly doesn't regurgitate for any either. Plus he's still as gentle as could be. Their only interactions are preening, which I feel may give Avery the delusion of being in a mated pair as he is of the opposite sex. And she hit the age of 2 when he came around and has been hormonal ever since.
What would you guys do in my situation?
Of course I was expecting hormones and any of the not so lovely behaviours to go with it, but what I understood is that eventually there would be some down time where she'd calm down and go back to not wanting to rub herself silly or want to be a baby maker 24/7. Certain things have died down, like the aggression, though it does still exist.
I've done what I could in terms of environment - she has no where to nest, I've changed her toys constantly (at least 1-2 times a week), I've added different toy types, changed foods, stopped providing any warm chops or any high protein foods, I went from not covering her (which helped for a bit until it didn't) to covering her again, I never hold her over her back, and in fact I haven't even cuddled her for probably close to six months now. The main issue is that she doesn't use toys to touch herself, she uses her cage bars. If it were toys I would simply remove them over night (it's always night and morning when she's most hormonal), but it's not. I can't exactly not have her in her cage over night. She always gets 10-14 hours of darkness to sleep, so she definitely isn't on a spring/summer schedule either.
One of the only things I can think of doing to help at this point is 1) contacting my avian vet to see if there are any possible treatments to give her to help her dial down her hormones, or 2) completely eradicate any interactions with my male IRN.
I do think he contributes to it to a certain degree. He's hit sexual maturity, but has never actually appeared hormonal. He doesn't feed Avery (I don't allow it), he doesn't try and mate with toys, and he certainly doesn't regurgitate for any either. Plus he's still as gentle as could be. Their only interactions are preening, which I feel may give Avery the delusion of being in a mated pair as he is of the opposite sex. And she hit the age of 2 when he came around and has been hormonal ever since.
What would you guys do in my situation?
