Is it okay for my bird to get off and regurgitate on toys?

[xx_cheyyxx]

Hi!
I’m pretty new to this website but I’ve had my lovebird for a little over a year now. The person I got her from said he believed she is a girl but I have yet to actually find out if that is true or not. When I first got her I put a pink stuffed pig in her cage in case she missed her siblings. Well, a few months after doing so she began to get off on the pig. I at first had no idea what she was doing and when I realized it, I went to google which said it was normal for birds who are alone to do so. After a month or two she began regurgitating on the stuffed animal so bad that I ended up throwing it away. She seemed to be a bit depressed after that so I found some new ones and now I switch them out for her and clean them. But it’s gotten so bad that she’s regurgitating everywhere, even on some toys and even more so on the stuffed animals. I just came across a thread on here and mentioned it may be bad to let them do so and take away from their learning of new tasks experience. If anyone is familiar with this behavior, I would absolutely love to hear your advice! (I do have my lovebird by herself but I have her out of her cage for numerous hours a day, but she even regurgitates and gets off on toys out of her cage)

 

[Wardy]

@Zara has lovebirds i think one of hers was doing this.

 

[DoubleTake]

I would get a food scale and start weighing your bird. Regurgitating is bad if it's gets to the point of her losing body weight. I don't have any personal experience with this as my single 3 yr old girl has never humped or regurgitated at an inanimate object. I've always distracted her at any signs of her being hormonal. In my case, she loves scritche so it was easy to distract her. She only gets humpy when she sees her female lovebird friend.

My friend's lovebird used to hump a stuff animal for a couple years until the bird was obsessed with it and became a little too fiesty. She finally removed it and the bird seems okay with it. They have a pretty good bond so that may be why the transition was smooth.

 

[Mizzely]

Regurgitation and masturbation is normal but they can take it to excess.

I would not encourage it with stuffed animals (stuffed animals in general I wouldn't permit my bird to have). Other triggers can be diet, touching them in places other than their head, etc.

 

[Oscarbird]

If anyone is familiar with this behavior, I would absolutely love to hear your advice!

I haven't had my lovie do any hormonal behaviors that were that repeditative, but he does have quite a few "girlfriends" that I've had to remove out of sight. These aren't bird toys but objects like pom poms or bracelets. (he loves to feed his bracelets!) I had to remove them because the humping and regurgitating was the only thing he did out of his cage. Now that I've successfully removed all of the "girlfriends", Oscar acts normally. I would recommend removing all the objects being humped/fed and trying your best to not encourage it. For instance, when I took Oscar out today he was really happy to see me and started regurgitating. I immediately set him down on his playstand and he didn't do it again. Good luck with your lovie.

 

[Elysian]

I don't have love birds but one of my male budgies has shown some tendencies that he might be going overboard.

So far I have been able to mitigate it by removing whatever becomes a problem.

I've rarely actively seen him regurgitate on the toys but I will sometimes start to notice leftover evidence it's been happening repeatedly, so I'll remove the toy.
Recently he started humping for the first time, on their little JW pet bowling set! When it started to become something he was doing for long periods of time I removed it too. He did not seem upset and has not yet picked another 'friend'.

If removing the toys didn't help I would look at their diet, change the layout of their cage, and change up their light/dark cycle to try to break them out of it..