I’ve been trying to meet several different birds these past few weeks, to find my perfect fit. Today I was at a shop and met a female Eclectus. She was the sweetest bird, and took to me instantly, content to play with my hair and receive head scratches. I was speaking with the store employee, and we were talking about behavior because I’ve read that females can be particularly hormonal. She was saying she didn’t think they were too bad, really just depended on the bird. Are there any owners of female ekkies here who could weigh in?
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Female Ecclectus Owners?
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Not an expert on ekkies, but I think that if you truly felt a connection with female ekkie, you should go for it. You could get a male ekkie or any other bird and still end up with a hormonal one. If you provide a proper environment, diet and enrichment, you probably won’t have any hormonal problems. 
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Thank you for the advice! I will say she is only 12 weeks old so, that may be a part of why she was so sweet and cuddly.Not an expert on ekkies, but I think that if you truly felt a connection with female ekkie, you should go for it. You could get a male ekkie or any other bird and still end up with a hormonal one. If you provide a proper environment, diet and enrichment, you probably won’t have any hormonal problems.
My Lucy is now 11 years old. She is a superb talker and singer! Sounds very human and enunciates quite clearly too! She loves climbing all over and even tosses balls around. She joins in conversations with appropriate answers and comments. i love her dearly!
BUT... She is extremely hormonal most of the time. I cannot really touch her at all. She'll step up on command most of the time, but only to my forearm not my hand. She will only tolerate sitting with me for a couple minutes before she wants down to do her own thing. She says Come Here Sweetie to the other birds but if they make any move at all She attacks them! She attacks my feet all the time so now I wear leather boots half way up my calf for protection. She attacks her flock mates viciously and cannot roam free with them. If one of them even tried to climb on her cage she attacks, and when she's out by herself she goes to their cages and tried attacking them thru the bars. I only let her out a couple hours a day because I have to supervise every minute, because of this I house her in a HUGE macaw cage so she has plenty of room to roam around and play. Ekkie beaks are very large, hers is as long as my thumb. I have had large chunks of flesh removed before I even realized she bit me. I have too many scars to count. I always tell people I garden alot!
I have had our vet give her shots so she would stop laying eggs every month but this did nothing for her aggressive tendencies. When she's in her cage and I'm in the aviary she talks and laughs with me like I'm her best friend, but open the cage door and she's a different bird. I make a daily effort during our one on one time to assure her I am her best friend and she can trust me.
Ekkies need a special diet, nearly all fresh organic fruit, with some veggies and a little protein every day. I do give them nutri berries as reward treats. They are not seed or nut eaters. My male ekkie Sergei is THE sweetest, most gentle bird I've ever met. He has never even nipped me. They eat the exact foods.
I love my red head Lucy, but there are times I do wish she was more like Sergei! I'm not saying another ekkie gal would ever act like Lucy, she's probably one of a kind! I've raised birds since the late 1960s and have always had a "way" with them, both the males and females. But Lucy is the only ekkie gal I've ever had. Hopefully somewhere down the line she'll learn I'm not so bad and that there are better chew toys to chomp on!
BUT... She is extremely hormonal most of the time. I cannot really touch her at all. She'll step up on command most of the time, but only to my forearm not my hand. She will only tolerate sitting with me for a couple minutes before she wants down to do her own thing. She says Come Here Sweetie to the other birds but if they make any move at all She attacks them! She attacks my feet all the time so now I wear leather boots half way up my calf for protection. She attacks her flock mates viciously and cannot roam free with them. If one of them even tried to climb on her cage she attacks, and when she's out by herself she goes to their cages and tried attacking them thru the bars. I only let her out a couple hours a day because I have to supervise every minute, because of this I house her in a HUGE macaw cage so she has plenty of room to roam around and play. Ekkie beaks are very large, hers is as long as my thumb. I have had large chunks of flesh removed before I even realized she bit me. I have too many scars to count. I always tell people I garden alot!
I have had our vet give her shots so she would stop laying eggs every month but this did nothing for her aggressive tendencies. When she's in her cage and I'm in the aviary she talks and laughs with me like I'm her best friend, but open the cage door and she's a different bird. I make a daily effort during our one on one time to assure her I am her best friend and she can trust me.
Ekkies need a special diet, nearly all fresh organic fruit, with some veggies and a little protein every day. I do give them nutri berries as reward treats. They are not seed or nut eaters. My male ekkie Sergei is THE sweetest, most gentle bird I've ever met. He has never even nipped me. They eat the exact foods.
I love my red head Lucy, but there are times I do wish she was more like Sergei! I'm not saying another ekkie gal would ever act like Lucy, she's probably one of a kind! I've raised birds since the late 1960s and have always had a "way" with them, both the males and females. But Lucy is the only ekkie gal I've ever had. Hopefully somewhere down the line she'll learn I'm not so bad and that there are better chew toys to chomp on!
Thank you! This is what I was looking for! What age did Lucy start becoming more aggressive? Did she just suddenly flip a switch or was it gradual? Has she always been this way? I’m trying to understand all angles before I make a decision. Her brother is at the store too. i did spend some time with him, he was nice, but definitely more timid.
I have researched about the specialized diets, I do have a question about pellets though. Some brands advertise ekkie friendly formulas, but are they worth the risk? Is it better to just stick with fresh foods?
Stay away from pellets! When I got Sergei, he had been on pellets. I immediately put him on the organic fresh fruits diet I described. These are his before and after pics. It's taken well over a year to get his natural colored plumage to grow in. Feathers grow slow, but he's looking better every day!
Lucy started being hormonal around age 3. Things went downhill pretty fast. She's had a dozen different homes til I adopted her a few years ago. I work with her every day but I really can't say if she'll ever calm down. I'm just very careful with her and try to never treat her any differently from my friendlier birds. This is her being nice. Check out her beak!
She's playful and active, talking to me the whole time. But I can sit perfectly still and out of the blue she'll stop what she's doing and charge at me to attack! I'm not giving up. Just need to figure out why she's behaving this way.
> She was saying she didn’t think they were too bad, really just depended on the bird. Are there any owners of female ekkies here who could weigh in?
The age of the little you were playing with is a huge factor in that; in the wild, they spend something like eleven months of the year in their holes, being fed by lots of males, nesting. They rarely come out, which is why the hormones are so tricky.
I knew a bird who was... twenty-three? At the bird shop where I used to volunteer. When she came out to be with her mama, she was happy as a clam. Eventually, she warmed up to me, and she'd come out and sit on me for about five minutes, but after that, all she wanted to do was find a dark little hole to nest in. She didn't want to be stroked by anyone, and I think she was just happy to cuddle with mom because it didn't happen very often.
A lot of how bitey they can be depends on how you respond to their hormones; many owners don't understand why their sweet little baby suddenly turns on them. At some point, a lot of teenage birds no longer want mom and dad, they want their own mate, which means they might switch to a different family member to give their affections to, refuse to come out, and if you don't respect their body language, learn to bite. Hard. Some of it could be temperament, but without extensive knowledge of the line (which you're probably not going to get--they're VERY recently wild birds, unlike dogs and cats who have been domesticated forever and ever), you won't really know the temperament until they hit hormones. Which can often spell troble.
With my limited experience, I personally wouldn't recommend a female eclectus to anyone but a veteran bird owner. The boys are much more sociable, love lots of people, and are significantly easier all because they don't have the SUPER strong drive to 1. nest in dark places and 2. DEFEND THEIR SPACE LIKE WHOA. They often love multiple people in a house (yay polyamorous birds!) and are chipper little men. That said, there ARE some birds who are great - some people think female ekkies get a bad rep and are amazing birds, but unless you have the experience with big bitey birds to back up your good intentions, it's a serious gamble, one that leaves many beautiful birds homeless, plucking, and miserable. I also knew another woman who recently lost her ekkie because of constant egg-laying; she became egg bound, and in spite of the woman doing everything possible to prevent it (vet trips, shots, diet, limiting light), she still lost her. It was absolutely tragic.
Think carefully. Know your limits; if this is your first bird, go with the boy. I once fostered a bird I believed my good intentions and large heart could help, and it ended really poorly (I'm still disappointed in myself). Those were very different circumstances with an even more difficult species, but once I started with an easier bird (my well-socialized boy ekkie), I was so much better equipped to adopt Viola, my double-yellow-bitey-hard-work bird. <3
Annnnd because you asked this:
> I have researched about the specialized diets, I do have a question about pellets though. Some brands advertise ekkie friendly formulas, but are they worth the risk? Is it better to just stick with fresh foods?
Eclectus parrots are prone to high cholesterol, which can often shorten their lifespan significantly. "Ekkie-friendly formulas" can be misleading; the main thing is that many of them (per three avian vets) often develop allergies to 1. corn, 2. wheat, and 3. spirulina. The dyes in them are also really awful for ekkies, so you have to be careful which brand you use.
I recently successfully lowered my ekkie's cholesterol significantly. He gets fresh fruit, vegetables, and Bird Bistro mash (with the corn picked out because it makes him toe-tap) every single day, and I feed him natural (not the colored ones) Zupreme pellets as his base. A lot of people on this forum are very very careful with their ekkie's diets because ones too high in fat or too lacking in variety can cause all kinds of health issues (plucking, toe-tapping, allergies). Organic, fresh variety is best, but if you're working full-time, it's not always possible, and making sure they get the right balance of everything from fresh food alone is crazy-hard in my opinion. Feel free to DM me and I can tell you more about how I feed my flock (I wrote a blog post on my silly blog about it), but you can also find a lot of posts here about how people feed their babies.
Best of luck!
The age of the little you were playing with is a huge factor in that; in the wild, they spend something like eleven months of the year in their holes, being fed by lots of males, nesting. They rarely come out, which is why the hormones are so tricky.
I knew a bird who was... twenty-three? At the bird shop where I used to volunteer. When she came out to be with her mama, she was happy as a clam. Eventually, she warmed up to me, and she'd come out and sit on me for about five minutes, but after that, all she wanted to do was find a dark little hole to nest in. She didn't want to be stroked by anyone, and I think she was just happy to cuddle with mom because it didn't happen very often.
A lot of how bitey they can be depends on how you respond to their hormones; many owners don't understand why their sweet little baby suddenly turns on them. At some point, a lot of teenage birds no longer want mom and dad, they want their own mate, which means they might switch to a different family member to give their affections to, refuse to come out, and if you don't respect their body language, learn to bite. Hard. Some of it could be temperament, but without extensive knowledge of the line (which you're probably not going to get--they're VERY recently wild birds, unlike dogs and cats who have been domesticated forever and ever), you won't really know the temperament until they hit hormones. Which can often spell troble.
With my limited experience, I personally wouldn't recommend a female eclectus to anyone but a veteran bird owner. The boys are much more sociable, love lots of people, and are significantly easier all because they don't have the SUPER strong drive to 1. nest in dark places and 2. DEFEND THEIR SPACE LIKE WHOA. They often love multiple people in a house (yay polyamorous birds!) and are chipper little men. That said, there ARE some birds who are great - some people think female ekkies get a bad rep and are amazing birds, but unless you have the experience with big bitey birds to back up your good intentions, it's a serious gamble, one that leaves many beautiful birds homeless, plucking, and miserable. I also knew another woman who recently lost her ekkie because of constant egg-laying; she became egg bound, and in spite of the woman doing everything possible to prevent it (vet trips, shots, diet, limiting light), she still lost her. It was absolutely tragic.
Think carefully. Know your limits; if this is your first bird, go with the boy. I once fostered a bird I believed my good intentions and large heart could help, and it ended really poorly (I'm still disappointed in myself). Those were very different circumstances with an even more difficult species, but once I started with an easier bird (my well-socialized boy ekkie), I was so much better equipped to adopt Viola, my double-yellow-bitey-hard-work bird. <3
Annnnd because you asked this:
> I have researched about the specialized diets, I do have a question about pellets though. Some brands advertise ekkie friendly formulas, but are they worth the risk? Is it better to just stick with fresh foods?
Eclectus parrots are prone to high cholesterol, which can often shorten their lifespan significantly. "Ekkie-friendly formulas" can be misleading; the main thing is that many of them (per three avian vets) often develop allergies to 1. corn, 2. wheat, and 3. spirulina. The dyes in them are also really awful for ekkies, so you have to be careful which brand you use.
I recently successfully lowered my ekkie's cholesterol significantly. He gets fresh fruit, vegetables, and Bird Bistro mash (with the corn picked out because it makes him toe-tap) every single day, and I feed him natural (not the colored ones) Zupreme pellets as his base. A lot of people on this forum are very very careful with their ekkie's diets because ones too high in fat or too lacking in variety can cause all kinds of health issues (plucking, toe-tapping, allergies). Organic, fresh variety is best, but if you're working full-time, it's not always possible, and making sure they get the right balance of everything from fresh food alone is crazy-hard in my opinion. Feel free to DM me and I can tell you more about how I feed my flock (I wrote a blog post on my silly blog about it), but you can also find a lot of posts here about how people feed their babies.
Best of luck!
Sergei is timid. He's cuddly and affectionate all the time. He's happiest sitting on my shoulder all day making comments on whatever I'm doing. He is so mellow that he let me put a harness on him the day I bought it! I take him on hikes all the time and do gardening with him on my shoulder (always wearing his harness of course
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Lucy lays eggs every 5-6 weeks. She has never been egg bound but I keep a close watch on her. She's 11 years old and weighs 552 grams. She's a good sized healthy girl. Her beak grows much faster than Sergei 's. Sergei is 28 years old and 489 grams. Seraphina is spot on with her advice. Starting with a female ekkie may not be the best idea, as she will be extremely challenging. But you're doing your homework, learning all you can to be prepared, and with enough love and determination you may end up with a lovely ekkie who doesn't act like my Lucy. Things may have been different if I had the chance to adopt her as a baby instead of rescuing an adult Bird that nobody wanted or cared about. But I'm not giving up on her! Twenty years from now she may be sitting on my shoulder going for a lake side hike!
This is one of her eggs...
This is one of her eggs...
Wow, you guys are amazing!! Thank you so much for the detailed replies. I really really appreciate it. This would be our first larger bird, we’ve had parakeets and cockatiels before. My husband’s female parakeet was not a fan of me at all, and bit often. Luckily she was so small, it didn’t hurt. I can imagine what big ekkie beak would feel like . I want to tell myself that I can totally handle anything a bird throws my way, but y’all are right. With such a big commitment, I need to be realistic.
I’m going back to the store on Saturday to visit again. I think I’ll give the male some extra attention and see how we get along. He’s a little less mature and is still figuring out how to hold on to things, so I feel like his unsteadiness probably attributed to his being timid. Here’s some pics of the cuties!
. I want to tell myself that I can totally handle anything a bird throws my way, but y’all are right. With such a big commitment, I need to be realistic. I’m going back to the store on Saturday to visit again. I think I’ll give the male some extra attention and see how we get along. He’s a little less mature and is still figuring out how to hold on to things, so I feel like his unsteadiness probably attributed to his being timid. Here’s some pics of the cuties!
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Yes, spend some time with the little boy too. The males have red feathers on the under side of their wings and aqua and blue feathers around the top edges. Quite beautiful when they stretch or fly!
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Thank you for your post. It is honest and comprehensive. I am always amazed by how some expect their "mated" ekkies to get along forever only to find out they hate each other later on. These are DEFINITELY polyamorous birds! I am very skeptical of pellet diets for my parrotlets too. There are so many p'lets who die from the higher protein and nutritionally rich morsels. Pellets are great, but they were really first created for species that primarily eat nuts, grains and seed. So species who eat more veg and fruits in the wild tend to suffer on a pelleted diet. Many of the tiny parrots eat some bark in their diet also, not very high in protein, hey. The pygmy parrot eats almost exclusively bark.
To anyone who wants to see more of them in the wild habitat.
Thank you for your post. It is honest and comprehensive. I am always amazed by how some expect their "mated" ekkies to get along forever only to find out they hate each other later on. These are DEFINITELY polyamorous birds! I am very skeptical of pellet diets for my parrotlets too. There are so many p'lets who die from the higher protein and nutritionally rich morsels. Pellets are great, but they were really first created for species that primarily eat nuts, grains and seed. So species who eat more veg and fruits in the wild tend to suffer on a pelleted diet. Many of the tiny parrots eat some bark in their diet also, not very high in protein, hey. The pygmy parrot eats almost exclusively bark.
To anyone who wants to see more of them in the wild habitat.
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