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Vent rubbing female linnie - How much is too much?

Tekuno

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Andrew
Hi everyone, I've browsed these forums a few times to find answers to questions I've had but this is my first time posting, so hello, I guess!

I have a little cobalt linnie named Indie, and she's the only bird out of my flock of 4 that has ever laid an egg. In fact, she laid too many clutches last year and the vet got concerned due to the frequency (3 or 4 in a year, about 4 eggs each). Anyway, I''m trying to keep her hormones under better control but it has been pretty challenging. I found my way to these forums after searching on google about birds humping their toys, and most owners say that its normal and I should only be concerned if it is too frequent, but all of the posts I read seemed to involve male parrots. On one hand, I understand that hormones and humping are natural behaviors but at the same time I don't want her in a hormonal state that causes her to lay eggs all the time again. Is there a threshold of humping I should allow? Has anyone else had this experience?

A few notes about her setup:
Diet:
Harrisons pellets + mixed greens and veggies
Current cage setup: We took her out of her larger cage and put her in a smaller one to change her location to limited success (her other cage is too big to relocate in our condo)
Toys: We try and rotate the toys and perches every week. The toys are tough because she has been systematically humping all of them and doesn't seem too keen on playing with them.
Out of cage time: Unfortunately, there are some birds in my flock that fight (my other Linnie and one of my budgies HATE each other), so I need to separate their out of cage time. She gets minimum 1 hr out with the other Linnie.
Sleeping arrangement: On weekdays we get them up at around 7am and then cover their cages at about 9pm.

I've attached a picture of her, but its not relevant to the question, but just because she is cute as heck.
 

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macawpower58

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Mine rub all of the time. I mean ALL THE TIME!
Luckily I've no eggs.
I'm not sure how much is too much, or it it leads to laying.
How would you even stop it?
Mine do it on anything and everything, from toys to perches.

And she is very cute! :heart:
 

Dona

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Welcome to you and Indie! She's adorable! It sounds like you are doing many things to discourage her from nesty behavior. Good diet and environment. Maybe a little more sleep? I turn out lights around 7:45-8PM and up at 7AM. Any toys or things in cage that let her hide or burrow? So she would think she has a safe place to lay eggs? Is your other Linnie a male? If so, maybe that's a factor? Do you touch her below the neck ever? That's possibly stimulating. I've found that my Linnie likes sola wood toys because they are easy to destroy, as well as leather to chew and bells. Maybe some new toys could keep her busier.

I have a single female 2 year old Linnie, Gigi. She has a love interest toy that she mounts from time to time, but fortunately, she has never laid eggs.
 
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Tekuno

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Thanks for the responses you two. Its good to know that Indie is not the only one rubbing her butt on things constantly. Our vet told us from the start that maintaining their environment and sleep schedule is the best/only way to control their hormones aside from pricey and risky injections, so I feel like they have helped put us on the right track for a lot of things. She doesn't have any place to burrow in her cage and thankfully she hasn't tried burrowing into the couch or anything when she is outside of her cage too. I don't touch her below the neck because I have heard it sends the wrong signal to them and also she gets really mad if I try to anyway.
As for chew toys, I added a few handmade paper toys to her cage yesterday to see if that will help. All my birds love balsa wood toys so we're fresh out of those, but I'll see if I can order some online. She has a few chewable toys in her cage right now, but she is choosing to play with them in... other ways.
My other Linnie is a male (Jazz), and they do try and mate occasionally when they are out of the cage together so we are always on watch when they are out flying around. I'll let them preen each other, but as soon as I hear them start to sing to one another I know it's time to break them up. Part of the reason she is in a smaller cage right now is because her usual cage is a large flight cage with a shared wall with Jazz but I've zip tied a semi translucent sheet of acrylic on their shared wall since they were feeding each other through it. If I had to do it again, I'd probably get them a stacking cage setup instead.
I'm going to try and let her take care of her urges a bit more today and see how it goes and just keep an eye on her weight a bit better and watch for an egg butt. I haven't weighed any of my birds for a while, now that I think about it.
 

Tekuno

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Update: Mission Failed. She's unstoppable. Here we go again for another clutch of eggs :(. As per her tradition, she laid it from the very top perch so this one is cracked. I've placed a nest in there for her to use for the next ones and finally placed an order for some false eggs for her to sit on.
 

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