Toby's Regurgitating

[Joannr24]

So for those helping me with Toby he started regurgitating with me while I was hanging out with him today.
Since we are so new in our friendship is this good or bad?

 

[Julianna]

Very good! Regurgitation is a sign of affection between a bonded pair.

 

[cstambaugh]

Some people dont let the bird do it, which I dont understand why. I let my GW regurgitate for me whenever he wants because I know its one of his greatest signs of affection.
Its a very good thing to have happen.

 

[veimar]

Parry does that to me very often! I freaked out at first because I didn't know what he was doing and thought he got sick, but then I read about regurgitating… LOL

 

[Jumpingtadpoles]

Rico regurgitates alllllllll the time. I'm his favourite, but he also does it when he found a spot he wants to nest, I guess he is trying to show me how well our babies would do. He does it when he likes the food he just ate. He does it for my daughter. Basically, if he's happy he's trying to puke for something, and he's a very happy guy........
I try to discourage it, because I want more to our friendship them regurgitating. I've only taught him one trick so far, to put his wings up, so I try to get him doing something else. I don't mind that he does it, but I'd rather be doing oh her things. Plus I've heard it can make them hormonal.
Whatever the case, it's a sign of affection

 

[MonicaMc]

If a bird bonds too closely to you, it can result in aggression towards other people.

If a bird is "encouraged" to be sexually active (encouraged as in the behavior is not being discouraged - simply ignoring the behavior can be encouraging it), this can lead to aggression towards others and perhaps an over-sexed bird.



It might be a good sign, but it's not something that you want to encourage if you want to have a better, well rounded bird to socialize with other people.

 

[Jumpingtadpoles]

How do you discourage, other then ignoring, and walking away? Walking away doesn't seem to phase him. As soon as you come back he's doing it again.

 

[MonicaMc]

You can teach a bird to perform some behaviors on cue. Once a bird knows how to do a behavior on cue and you know the bird is about to do a behavior you don't want the bird to do (i.e. you see the signs of the behavior about to happen before it happens), you can cue the non-hormonal behavior and reward the bird for that.

It can also help to not allow the birds anywhere near a nest or nest like objects and material, no feeding warm foods, possibly changing the diet, no handling that results in a bird becoming aroused, changing the cage around, changing cage location, changing day/night hours, etc to help prevent some of the hormonal behaviors.



Cockatoos are well known for being one species that easily gets over-sexed because of the diets and how we interact with these birds. Other parrots can as well.



I think it's great and all if your bird loves you and enjoys spending time with you, however we can't mate with our parrots. We can't raise little human-bird babies with them. It's almost like having a one sided relationship, and it's simply not good for birds to constantly be aroused. We easily set up our homes for ideal breeding conditions because the temperatures are constant throughout the year, light/darkness is constant, an abundance of food available, lots of places to seek out and make a potential nest of, then encouraging hormonal behavior, even if inadvertently... well, can you imagine how frustrated some birds may become? We set up an ideal breeding situation for them, then we wont mate with them!


That's just not the kind of relationship I would want to have with my birds.

 

[JerseyWendy]

I completely agree with Monica on this. Niko tends to get himself whirled up with the regurgitating motion, and I found if I approach him with a little distraction (a toy part, for example), he won't even start this behavior.

The other thing that snaps him out of it is if I stand by one of my big windows and give him something exciting to look at, he'll quit immediately.