What is happening to my caique?

[Nick4Caique]

So I recently got a caique and he allowed me to pet him and hold him and he was very comfortable with me, but yesterday he started making clicking noises and moving his head in qnd out rapidly as if he's going to throw up and he kept on trying to bite my finger and made this weird noise, what is happening to him? I'm worried

 

[Owlet]

how old is your caique?

 

[ChristaNL]

Sounds like he/she is flirting.


Owlet already asked the million-dollar-question: what is the age of your bird
(and for 20 dollars more: Do you know (DNAtest) if you have a male or female?)

 

[Nick4Caique]

how old is your caique?

About 4 months old

 

[Nick4Caique]

Sounds like he/she is flirting.


Owlet already asked the million-dollar-question: what is the age of your bird
(and for 20 dollars more: Do you know (DNAtest) if you have a male or female?)

Unknown gender

 

[Owlet]

Could be caique play. At my work place there's a caique that does something similar but he's also going through puberty so I'm not sure.

 

[Nick4Caique]

Could be caique play. At my work place there's a caique that does something similar but he's also going through puberty so I'm not sure.

He doesnt do this withy my brother, or she

 

[Owlet]

just like humans, birds will interact differently with different people. How sure are you that your bird is 4 months? did you get him from a breeder?

 

[noodles123]

It does sound sexual, but that age is pretty young still, so I don't think it is..Regardless/just in case, I would stick to petting on the head only and avoid cuddles, if not for now, for the future...Also, if you don't know already (again, for future reference), do not allow access to any dark spaces--blankets, cuddle huts, tents, pillows, furniture etc.

 

[ParrotGenie]

So I recently got a caique and he allowed me to pet him and hold him and he was very comfortable with me, but yesterday he started making clicking noises and moving his head in qnd out rapidly as if he's going to throw up and he kept on trying to bite my finger and made this weird noise, what is happening to him? I'm worried

The good old head down with clicking noises...He not broken, he trying to bond to you. Just don't pet him to much toward the back area and try to pet him only on the head, if he lift his wings and you pet him under the wing, it is consider foreplay to them.

 

[Sunnyclover]

Maybe begging for food. Make sure that your baby is fully weaned and not slowly starving to death. Sometimes at that age they can regress and decide they want formula instead of their food. It happened to one of my conures when he was a baby and I had to hand feed for a month or so even though he was 4 months old at the time.

 

[mrs.pants]

its hard to tell without a vid which kinda head bobbing s/hes doing, but if hes just bobbing it up and down thats very normal. sometimes young bids will bob their head very fast, beak tilted upwards, which is a baby behavior. itll fade with time and age. long as you see your bird eating youre good (they are great eaters!).

anyways! for caiques head bobbing can mean hes having fun, wants you to play, wants attention, or hes entertaining himself. if we do it our boi does it too lol. were working on targeting the behavior with our caique so hell do it on command. (Nanners also did the baby head bobbing -we called it his lil warble- but it stopped around 5 - 6 months old).

they definitely interact differently with different people. but yeah keep petting to the head and neck area. sometimes they roll over in play and its ok to play with their feet and head or give them a toy to play with.

 

[ParrotGenie]

Maybe begging for food. Make sure that your baby is fully weaned and not slowly starving to death. Sometimes at that age they can regress and decide they want formula instead of their food. It happened to one of my conures when he was a baby and I had to hand feed for a month or so even though he was 4 months old at the time.

If his beak/mouth is pointing up and head moving up and down rapidly, then likely could be for food. You do have unethical breeders that only care about pushing babies out the door for quick $$$, rather then waiting. I had to hand fed a bare eyed cockatoo as he wasn't fully weaned, even though the breeder claim he was when they sold him to a new couple that had no clue, or experience with birds in the past and they sold him to them for quite a large sum over 2k. Plus had to train the couple how to handle the bird and etc. I unfortunately run into this quite a bit and common unfortunately.

If he just bobbing it up and down then it is very normal and could be excited.

 

[EllenD]

Did you get him/her from a private-breeder or from a pet shop? Did you get a "hatch-certificate" with him that states his hatch-date?

The question really is how sure are you of his age being around 4 months old? It's probably just his way of interacting with you/bonding with you, or if he's actually closer to 6 months old it could be his sex-hormones kicking-in and he's trying to regurgitate for you..Is he bringing anything up when he does the head-bobbing? Usually when they regurgitate they bring up tiny bits of solid white material, that's the dead-giveaway that he's regurgitating for you and it's his hormones...

***What you need to be sure of is that he is fully-weaned and he's eating solid food appropriately and that it's sustaining him...Unfortunately we get tons of people who bring home young parrots and they were lied to about their age, and they aren't actually anywhere close to the age that they were told that they are....And when this happens and they aren't fully-weaned, that means that they aren't yet eating enough solid food to sustain themselves and the breeder just sold them too soon and they should still be eating hand-feeding formula several times a day...So that's what you want to be careful about...

What is his regular, daily diet that he came to you on?

****I HIGHLY SUGGEST that you run out and buy a digital kitchen scale, you can get one at any Walmart, Target, etc. for around $15-$20, then you need to start weighing him every single day to make sure he's not losing weight. You have to weigh him every day at the same exact time, and the best time is first thing in the morning AFTER he poops but BEFORE he eats his breakfast. Weigh him and then write down the date, time, and weight in a notebook to keep track of it...If you weigh him at exactly the same time every day and see that he's continually losing weight each day for a week, then you've got a problem...If his weight is stable or goes up a gram or two and then comes down a gram or two, etc., then he's fine...You also need to keep careful track of exactly how much of his solid food he's eating each day by measuring out his daily pellets/seed-mix, his fresh veggies, etc., and then keep track of how much is left after he's done eating...Often when they aren't fully-weaned it looks like they're eating a lot of their solid food, but when you actually keep track of it you find out that they're simply playing with it and throwing it around, and aren't actually eating much of it at all...