Plain silly behavior! Does it mean something?

[Girltron]

Our Francis has two very odd habits.

 

The first one, which he does when he really likes something (when we talk to him or when I play Duke Ellington. He loves Duke Ellington) is a kind of dance. He holds onto the cage bars with his beak, and marches up and down with his feet, and flaps the bend/shoulder parts of his wings.

 

The second one might be sort of frustrating to him. He gets up high in his cage, but not as high as he CAN go, and then stretches his foot as high as possible as if straining to touch the ceiling. He's too low to touch the ceiling though so he just strains and strains until it looks like his leg cramps up, and then he lowers and stretches out his leg and clenches his foot for a minute before trying it again. I have a theory about this one, though. His previous owners kept him in a small, round cage with a dome top. He lived in it for nearly 10 years as I understand it. I'm wondering if he's trying to feel for the domed area that used to be right above his head on his highest perch? We've tried putting those rope perches really high up and he does love them, but he still does this thing that we're starting to call Parrot Pilates. I've filled the roof of the cage with dangling toys and cardboard to chew but it doesn't stop him from doing this when he's not playing.

[Greywings]

Ok we need a video of that maneuver please it sounds fascinating.

[JillyBeanz]

Ha Ha! Sounds hilarious - Francis is obviously the adventurous type!! I agree - video evidence!!

[Dave007]

Basically, that's exersise. Greys and other medium sized parrots have some ogf the strangest moves when exersizing. i can tell you that he's not cramping his foot because he wouldn't try something else with the other foot if one was cramped. Some stretch by hanging off the inner roof of a cage. Others may do similar things like yours. It's all stretching.

""I'm wondering if he's trying to feel for the domed area that used to be right above his head on his highest perch? ""

 

It's possible. He's now in a brand new larger cage and simply testing out the similarities. Remember, he's gotta get used to everything. Everything is new to him. Over the next few months he'll be checking everything out using his own crazy methods but if you see something that scares you make sure you chat about it here and people can tell you whether it's good or bad but only rarely is something bad when it concerns their moving around. You did a good thing by getting a bigger cage. Small cages can cause some parrots to start plucking at themselves because of little room.

So, he's on your shoulder there, wings are down, so obviously you're appealing to him.

I realize it's a burden but LOOK, YOU'RE JUST HAVE TO ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YOU'RE ATTRACTIVE!!!!!!!!!

[judygram]

Basically, that's exersise. Greys and other medium sized parrots have some of the strangest moves when exersizing.

 

I can vouch for that, I have seen Josey get herself into some strange positions and it looks uncomfortable but it obviously isn't or she wouldn't be doing it but please do let us know any time you have a question for someone here can help you with it, after all thats why we are here.