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[danewillow]

I'm new here but we've had a bird for 4 years now. We started with Einstein, a Timneh African Grey. We got him as a baby. He's a one-person bird. Likes me but nobody else. He has a pretty good vocabulary. His favorite comment is always "chirp" though. Last year one of my coworkers had a friend looking for a new home for his 9 year old yellow-naped Amazon Rocky. They had two kids and the bird wasn't getting enough attention, except when the toddler climbed into the cage! We've had him for about 9 months now. He's a riot! We're greeted every day with "HI ROCKY!!!" He sings opera and songs about Rocky (everything is all about Rocky) and laughs too. His one annoying habit is crying like an infant and babbling like a toddler. He has this one other weird behavior. He mostly does it to my husband (his favorite human). He squats in his lap and makes chortling sounds. Sometimes he'll do this in a corner when he's waddling around on the counter. I'm guessing this is some kind of mating behavior? I've tried to find information about weird bird behaviors but I haven't found any info describing this type of behavior. Neither of our birds are DNA sexed so we have no idea what they are.

Julie

 

[zarafia]

Welcome Julie. It sounds to me like Rocky is in love with your husband. My male bluefront Misty has been doing the same thing with my male citron cockatoo Baka. I think spring is in the air.
I hope you enjoy the forum. You should post some pictures for us to look at, we just love pictures.

 

[danewillow]

Their pictures are in the photo gallery now. I'll have to add some better ones. Einstein's is kind of blurry and Rocky's is from his first day with us when his nails were really long!

Julie

 

[Tracy842]

Welcome to the Parrot Forums Julie!!!

Love the pictures. I love Great Danes!!! Photobucket is a great website for storing pictures and you can upload them directly into messages. Keep those pictures coming. Einstein and Rocky sound like a lot of fun!!!

 

[TexDot33]

He squats in his lap and makes chortling sounds. Sometimes he'll do this in a corner when he's waddling around on the counter. I'm guessing this is some kind of mating behavior?

On the initial guess ... birdie, um ... well, ... birdie masturbation is my guess ...

Welcome to the forum, you are going to learn a lot here, hopefully more than what I just gave out for information. As long as it isn't a constant thing, completely natural - when they start to "self-pleasure" too often THEN it becomes an issue (freakishly like humans, there is a normal amount and then there is an obsessive amount ... but THAT, folks, is a conversation for a different forum, one hopefully relating to Mental Health.).

:50:

 

[Auggie's Dad]

Welcome to the forums. I'm with Tex on the "chortling" behavior... My Auggie may do that a bit too much - he's the Ron Jeremy of the bird world.

As far as the other...

"They had two kids and the bird wasn't getting enough attention, except when the toddler climbed into the cage! .... His one annoying habit is crying like an infant and babbling like a toddler."

Well, yeah. It worked for the kids, so why not try it to get mom and dad to come running. If you want to get rid of this unfortunately just ignoring it is the most important thing. If you don't like his crying be sure not to respond to it in any way. Additionally you could try teaching him a key word or sound as a polite and appropriate way to ask for attention (and of course give him the attention when he asks appropriately.)

This case would be like many others where it is generally much easier to replace an inappropriate behavior with a better one versus trying to 'stop' an annoying behavior.

 

[danewillow]

Yeah, Rocky knows exactly what got Mom and Dad's attention. We try to ignore the crying baby. That's really annoying. He also yells "Ow!" once in a while. You've got to laugh though when he babbles on and on and then says in Mom's voice "What?"

Julie