Tia my parakeet.... Why might she be doing this....?

[ksmith5151]

I have a half English Budgie/parakeet named Tia and I still can not figure her out. She is about 1 year old. I wish I knew how to make her happy. Personally I think she has a birdy form of obsessive compulsive disorder. lol. Guessing and naming the problem is kinda funny but really, I do wish I knew if there was anything more I can do to help her more. She doesn't act like a normal parakeet.

I got Tia from my bird breeder friend about 6 months ago because she needed some TLC. He had the female and male parakeets separated into two separate cages but the cages were side by side. For three weeks straight every time I saw Tia on the weekend she kept flipping herself while holding onto cage bars and then sticking her right wing completely outside the cage through the cage bars. She would do that relentlessly non-stop. Often she got her wing caught in the cage bars. My bird breeder friend and I thought that she just wanted by the boys really bad.

I took her home to see if I could help her. She damaged her right wing quite a bit. All of her primary and secondary feathers were gone and even some feathers above those. My avian vet was surprised that she never broke her wing after I explained how she hurt it. With the exception of the wing she got a clean bill of health.

Today her right wing is almost back to normal but I think she might not be able to grow back some of flight feathers. It has been healing very slowly. I've been keeping her left wing clipped so she won't hurt herself if she tried flying.

She is around many other parakeets. Males and females. I have 15 parakeets. She has lots of toys and food and places to climb. She is also very slowly learning to trust me. This month she is finally letting me pick her up but only to help her get out of the cage or back in. As far as her interations with others, I haven't seen her preen any of the other parakeets or others wanting to preen her. She usually keeps to herself which I thought was odd.

The problem still is her behavior. She will put her foot on the cage bars and bite and pluck the cage bars over and over and over. Often I have to tell her to stop or move her somewhere else because she won't quit. It doesn't matter if she's in or out of the cage. She'll still do that. She will also sometimes hold onto to the cage bars and flip herself. She does that much less but I don't want her hurting herself again.

Any ideas about her behavior? I can't think of anything I haven't done for her to make her happy. Just curious what others might think her problem is and if it could be helped more.

---- Kimberley Smith

 

[MikeyTN]

Are you able to post a video? Im a bit confused on what she is doing exactly from your explanations, if I could see it would be better...

 

[ksmith5151]

Yeah, I can try to get a video of her. I'll try to keep a close eye on her tomorrow and have the camera ready. I never posted on uTube but maybe I can put the video there so she can be seen.

----- Kimberley Smith

 

[Lauren]

That sounds very similar to what Skittles will do when she wants out of her cage or sees something she likes outside of it that she cannot reach.

Does she do it while OUT of the cage? or solely while inside?

 

[ksmith5151]

I thought she was wanting out too at first but I've seen Tia purposely climb inside the cage to pull at the cage bars relentlessly. She'll pull at the bars as fast as she can non-stop with one foot on the cage bars. During the day the cage door to my large cage is always open. Most of the time she is in the cage when she pulls at the cage bars but I've also seen her do that while she's hanging outside the cage. I've never seen her pull at the bars while she's on top of the cage.

---- Kimberley Smith

 

[Ratzy]

Quarantine......?

 

[ksmith5151]

Quarentine??? Tia isn't sick. There is just something going on in her head I can't figure out. I've had her about 6 months now and pulling the cage bars and flipping herself has been her behavior from the start. It's gotten a little better since she came home but it still persists.

Yep, there she goes again, first thing in the morning. Whew. She has one foot on the cage bars, she's half way flipped over and is pulling at the cage bars repeatedly. I tried to get a picture of her doing that this morning but the camera stopped her when she saw it. I'll keep trying today.

----- Kimberley Smith