LydiaB
Meeting neighbors
My quaker parrot, Eddie, has been masturbating a LOT for the past maybe 8-10 months. I've been meaning to ask about it, but it's kept slipping my mind. It hasn't really gotten in the way of anything and I don't see it as necessarily harmful, but then again, I don't know. The way he does it is by rubbing on his twisted rope in his cage, rubbing on his other moveable perch, and just rubs on anything he can if he feels like it. I've noticed he does it right when I'm putting him to bed at night. I sing a goodnight song, close his cage, and put a blanket over his cage. But as I'm singing and getting ready to put on the cover, he starts masturbating. He also does that when I pull the blanket off in the morning. Those are the only triggers I've noticed for his masturbation. Basically, I was wondering, why is he doing this? And why does wake up time and goodnight time trigger him to do it? Is it okay to let him do this or should I be trying to stop this behavior? I assume its something hormonal.
He's also always been kind of an aggressive bird. He tends to bite and hiss, but mostly towards others, not me. He goes from letting me give him kisses on the head to biting my nose. He is very territorial of his cage and perch and will attack if you get in his space. When you get him out of those spaces, he tends to be less aggressive, but he STILL hisses and bites, just less than when he's in his cage. Why is he displaying all this hormonal and aggressive behavior? Do I stop him from masturbating? And how do I stop the aggression?
He's also always been kind of an aggressive bird. He tends to bite and hiss, but mostly towards others, not me. He goes from letting me give him kisses on the head to biting my nose. He is very territorial of his cage and perch and will attack if you get in his space. When you get him out of those spaces, he tends to be less aggressive, but he STILL hisses and bites, just less than when he's in his cage. Why is he displaying all this hormonal and aggressive behavior? Do I stop him from masturbating? And how do I stop the aggression?
