Unusual bedtime behavior

[taxidermynerd]

Hi all. Jade has been a little bit of a handful at night lately.

Over the last handful of days, she's been spending time on the cage floor after I cover her cage, playing with foot toys and chewing on (clean) cage papers through the grate.

I cover her at roughly the same time every night, give or take an hour. She gets a little bit over 12 hours of covered cage time a night. No sounds that would disturb sleep, I keep the volume on everything off or use earbuds. The only sound is fan noise.

Jade hasn't been acting weird otherwise. She can fly and perch and climb, she eats normally, plays with toys and makes normal bird sounds. She only does this at night.

I don't think she's actually sleeping on the floor, she has a couple of spots higher up that she normally sleeps in, but I can't be 100% sure. Her cage is well lit during the day, so no dark nesty spots.

She's 1 year 8 months old, so I would think she'd be a bit young for hormones.

Thoughts?

 

[taxidermynerd]

Update: I think she is sleeping on the cage floor. If I pick her up and put her on a perch, she'll stay for a few seconds before I hear her climb back down.

Should I be worried? Should I get in touch with the vet?

 

[taxidermynerd]

Good morning all. So today I uncovered her early, for my doctor's appointment. She was still on the floor, and then after she realized I uncovered the cage she climbed up to her main perch.

So yeah I don't know what her deal is. Would appreciate some extra opinions because I don't know if I should be worried or if it's just a quirky thing she does now.

 

[Teckechick]

Could she be getting cold maybe? It may be warmer at the bottom of the cage. Did you by chance put something new in the cage that she doesn't want to sleep by?

It is never a bad idea to ask the vet!

 

[taxidermynerd]

Could she be getting cold maybe? It may be warmer at the bottom of the cage. Did you by chance put something new in the cage that she doesn't want to sleep by?

It is never a bad idea to ask the vet!

Nothing new in the cage, the room is the same temperature as always (70F) but with the weather changing I suppose it's possible.

 

[hrafn]

Aurélie WCP went through a phase where she was adamant about sleeping on the bottom of her cage every night, and spent a lot of the night shredding papers on the cage floor. She had a full checkup with blood panels and everything that came back clear, and after a couple weeks or so she stopped and went back to her old favourite perch. She was around two and a half at the time, and the vet's thought was that she was feeling nesty.

Cheekies (if I recall correctly) hit sexual maturity at around 1-2, so little Jade might be feeling hormonal. They grow up so fast!

Of course, there's no harm in getting your vet's opinion if you're worried. Always better safe than sorry.

 

[flyzipper]

chewing on (clean) cage papers through the grate.

One of my guys is shredding everything he can find (especially on the floor), and does that in phases throughout the year -- perhaps that's the allure of the bottom part of Jade's cage, but that's just speculation.

Jade hasn't been acting weird otherwise. She can fly and perch and climb, she eats normally, plays with toys and makes normal bird sounds.

If it's difficult to get to a vet, this statement makes me think Jade is ok, but as suggested by others a quick trip to the vet is sometimes worth it to eliminate the worry.

 

[taxidermynerd]

Jade is still being weird at bedtime, so we're calling the vet in the morning to see if she thinks we should bring Jade in.

 

[Peachfaced]

My thinking would be hormones. If you weigh her frequently, have you noticed any losses or gains in her weight?

 

[taxidermynerd]

I don't really weigh her regularly, I know I should but she's finicky. She's been eating the same amount and everything, not unusually active or inactive, it's just very odd. Hopefully the vet will be able to either give some ideas for how to deal with this, or get us in for an appointment.

 

[Peachfaced]

I usually have to set Rupert on the scale, and kinda hold his treat while he's trying to get it from me. I'm stalling to allow the scale to register his weight. I tried a couple of different configurations (perch on the scale), but both of my birds prefer to just sit on the scale with nothing else on it.

 

[macawpower58]

I'm also thinking nesting behavior, dark place, looking to shred.
I know mine will be on cage floor much more often when hormones hit.

 

[April]

Tobias will do something similar (DNA male 6 months old) from day 1 I’ve had him about a month and 2 weeks now. He will run back on forth on the cage bottom to play during the day but at night he will be sleeping under his toy on his flat perch when I have the tv on but as soon as I turn the tv off and it’s totally dark he every night without fail will leave his spot and climb down to the bottom of his cage and will run around or throw his foot toys around and make noises for 5-15 mins and then he will climb back up and go to sleep. Even after a month I just can’t figure out why he does this,I guess it’s a weird quirk and only time will tell if he out grows it.

 

[Craftydan]

As best as we can figure, Essie has always slept on the bottom of her cage since we got her (shortly after weaning).

We lay a towel down at the bottom, and she'll crawl into the folds. That being said, we don't cover her cage -- she's in her own room, with a slowly dimming light (she puts herself to sleep). At first we wondered, but then added a baby cam over her cage -- we can usually see her tail sticking out of the towel. As the light dims she plays and snacks, then starts crawling under the towel and popping back out . . . then in and out . . . until she finally calms down for the night and stays put.

Even got her a fancy heated perch and platform near the top with food and water handy. She loves it during the day, but every night, down she goes.

Is she the odd one out? Dunno, but she seems happy with it and perfectly healthy by any measure we can see.

 

[taxidermynerd]

So we called the vet to ask her opinion, she got back to us and she said Jade could be nesty. So she said to give Jade things to shred, increase darkness to 14-16 hours and make sure there's nothing that can be perceived as a nest box.

 

[taxidermynerd]

So Jade is still being nesty. I've upped her darkness to 14 hours, and the house is as close to silent as we can get (some fan noise). She likes to sit on the bottom of her cage and make little yelling sounds.

I think tomorrow I'll rearrange her cage, try to shake her out of it.

If yall could give some advice I'd appreciate it, I've never dealt with a nesty bird before so I'm very inexperienced.

 

[taxidermynerd]

Last night I put a thick wool blanket over the front of Jade's cage, in addition to her normal cage cover- it seemed to calm Jade down some, she wasn't making as many noises and seemed to settle in for the night quicker. Still slept on the cage floor though.

 

[taxidermynerd]

Today I shuffled up some stuff near the bottom of Jade's cage, and wouldn't you know it, she's sleeping higher up now! She's around the middle of the cage but hey, I'll take it.