Hi - looking for some advice!
We just adopted a 3 year old male ekkie 3 days ago. He was rehomed to us because he was very hormonal in his last home, although the previous owner says he was never aggressive in their home. She had him only three months before deciding to move him to another home. Before that, I don't know anything about his living situation except that he was fed seeds and not bathed. We are working towards helping him to accept misting/bathing, eat fresh foods and rely less on pellets. He barbers and overpreens his feathers. The cage he came with is unsuitably small and a bit rusty, but I'm waiting to buy him a newer one until I can get it discounted in the next couple months. In the meantime I've put more appropriate perches and toys in his cage.
He is handleable and pretty friendly. We have a Pionus but this is our first time with an eclectus, and I'm struggling to read his body language. There's been a few instances of growling and lunging that I'd like to understand better. Firstly, he growls and lunges to defend his food bowls - he is clearly food guarding/resource defensive. He hasn't bitten yet but I imagine that's because we get out of the way. He also tries hard to get up onto shoulders, and then growls and bites if we try to take him off. I am trying not to allow him onto my shoulder - I feel like he isn't predictable enough yet.
Today he was trying hard to get to my shoulder and resisted getting off of me; I had to sort of force him off onto his cage. I then left him alone for a bit (in the dining room with my other parrot, who seems to tolerate him just fine). I'm not sure if walking away is the right thing to do, but I wasn't sure how to respond to him trying so hard to get onto my shoulder. Today he also growled and lunged a couple times when I walked away from his cage while he was hanging out on top of it. It was right after I had misted him. He is not used to misting, so I only mist him when he's standing towards the front part of the roof of his cage, and I stop if he moves away, so I thought he was tolerating it okay. He was standing still while I misted and then he moved away and I stopped. I then walked away, and he growled and lunged and pinned his eyes once I was a couple feet away. Any ideas what that is?
Sometimes it seems like he wants to step up but I'm not sure where he wants to go or what he wants to do. He can't fly so he isn't able to go where he likes, he has to depend on me. I also wonder if he's wanting to step up in order to get to my shoulder to engage in mating behavior, which I won't allow.
I feel a little intimidated by him, which is probably silly because he hasn't bitten me and he's overall a gentle bird. But I'm having a hard time reading his cues and that makes me feel unsure of myself. Any guidance around how to interpret some of this behavior would be helpful!
