Head twitching question.

[mpr86]

Starting about a day after we brought him home, he started to twich his head occasionally.

 

The head twitching happens mostly after feeding and when someone approaches to pick him up while he's on top of his cage. For example, when I put my finger to his chest and tell him to step up while he's on top of the cage, he will twitch/shake his head as if hes saying no. Another example is: I was sitting on the floor, he was on the floor as well, and he climbed up my pants onto my arm and then stood there and twitched his head until I started to move. He also likes to rub his beak a lot between the bars.

 

However, whenever he's inside the cage by himself, he never twitches. I sat there and timed him for a full 5 minutes while he was inside the cage and not a single head twitch.

 

Any thoughts?

[Tari]

Mine do this every now and again. Not sure why. Keep an eye on him. When was his last check up?

[danmcq]

Good question MPR.

 

Since it only seems to happen with associated actions on your part when performing a step up or similar close contact function, it may just be his small reaction.

 

Others I am sure will have some ideas too. :-)

[judygram]

Josey does this also and now that I think of it, she does not do it much when she is in her cage, it is mostly when she is out.

 

Maybe others will chime in with their observations and we will see whether this is a common occurance among greys.

[lovemyGreys]

Not sure what it means but my three occasionally twitch their heads.

[mpr86]

We picked him up on the 18th and got his checkup on the 19th of this month (3 days ago). The doc said he was healthy, but we started to notice this the day after the vet checkup.

[judygram]

If the vet gave him a clean bill of health then I would not worry about it, I think you are noticing something that probably all greys do at one time or another.

[Kibibi]

My Grey does it too. If the vet doesn't see anything wrong then I wouldn't worry about it. From Birds For Dummies page 123;

"One final species-specific oddity -- head shaking in African Greys: Brian has looked down the ears of lots of African Greys whose owners were certain something was hiding inside, because of all the head-shaking. He hasn't found anything -- yet."<br><br>Post edited by: Kibibi, at: 2007/11/22 21:59

[Guest briansmum]

yep brian likes to shake his head too, i'd never thought about it but now that it's been mentioned he does do it more out of his cage than in. maybe it relates to being happy and content.. like a dog wagging it's tale.

 

.. ooor, maybe they're so shocked at some of the silly things we do for them that they have to shake themselves to make sure what theyre seeing is real :lol:

[judygram]

briansmum wrote:

.. ooor, maybe they're so shocked at some of the silly things we do for them that they have to shake themselves to make sure what theyre seeing is real :lol:

 

 

Beccy, this may just be the case, now that you mention it. :laugh: