Wiggle Neck Dance

[PacificPaulie]

Hey all!

I was out of state for a week and hubby was in charge of all our animal babies. I just got back and hubby was telling me Paulie was doing a "weird neck wiggle" .

I showed him the video of wiggle neck behavior and he said that's what it was. Paulie has never done it with me, just hubby. Can you guys please explain what it means and how to appropriately respond?

I had done some research on it when I first got Paulie but I can't recall what I had learned about it except that it's like the baby equivalent of courtship... Is that correct?

 

[sunnysmom]

 

[Gribouille]

I don't know, I'm not really fond of interpreting everything in the light of courtship, mating, hormones and such... Sounds very Freudian to me and I never liked his phallo-centered theories and the way he sexualized everything about children behavior either.
When Twitter did wiggle, which happened quite seldom, I interpreted it as a seed shell tickling his throat or a sign of happiness. It never lead to anything else so I let it at that.

 

[Marlienchen]

Just a guess.. I can't answer for parrotlets specifically, but maybe your husband pets him differently? I know that you generally should not pet birds on the back since it could give them a wrong impression, which could potentially be a cause for the regurgitating.

 

[laracroft]

It is a sign of affection and is linked to courtship, but it's not really a big deal as long as he's not doing it constantly. Best response is just to ignore it.

 

[fashionfobie]

I second @laracroft do you best to ignore it or to redirect the behaviour, maybe by starting a game or training session. 'peek-a-boo' seems like a nice way for me to distract my boys when they are getting this way. They love that game.


The wiggle dance is courtship. They experiment a lot with it when they are young. This is the same behaviour they will use when they are adults. When my boys started doing this a lot I was wondering and also asked a question. The best response I got was "they do it when they think something is awesome!"
I think that is pretty spot on. Sure they would do it with a mate, also with a toy, their friends, and Neptune will do it when he hears hungry baby parrotlets on youtube. He is too sweet for his own good. Paulie thinks your husband is awesome!

 

[Dgh]

I second @laracroft
The best response I got was "they do it when they think something is awesome!"
I think that is pretty spot on. Sure they would do it with a mate, also with a toy, their friends, and Neptune will do it when he hears hungry baby parrotlets on youtube. He is too sweet for his own good. Paulie thinks your husband is awesome!

I agree it is for something awesome. It is also affection. Quill does it since he has allowed Scritches. They can offer food to a favorite flock member completely seperate from sexual. I give scritches as much as he wants and don't make a big deal of the wiggle. He isn't getting worse and isn't acting hormonal at all. So I allow him to wiggle but distract to something else when I can.

 

[PacificPaulie]

Thank you all so much! We appreciate the help in interpreting Paulie's behaviors.

@Marlienchen hubby started out petting him like that, but I was quick to help him see why that was a no-no. We keep to petting him on his face/head/neck. Always around the head.