My hand is his girlfriend!

[Acappella]

My feet too lol.  I've always been Dorian's love, but lately he's regurging when I turn on the lights in the morning, when I change his food, clean his cage . . .  It's a struggle to get him to step up because he'd rather regurg to my hand. When he's walking around on the floor he's the same way with my feet.  He keeps crawling under pieces of furniture and doesn't want to come out.  I think he's getting nesty. He gets a full 12 hours of sleep in the dark and quiet every night, and I don't touch him anywhere but his head and neck.  Is there anything else I can do to discourage this?  How harmful can it be?

[Timbersmom]

I wish I knew the answer but I don't. You are already doing the things I know to do. When this happens with Timber, I've just "ridden it out" and it passes with time. My understanding from the posts I've read is that it isn't harmful so much as uncomfortable for your bird for males. For females, the egg issue can be a problem. I'd be happy to hear input from others, since this is something a lot of us go through.

[SRSeedBurners]

I converted an old two-drawer dresser into a Huey hangout.   I put a utensil tray in the drawer with a bunch of wooden cuttlery and other cardboard chewy toys.   He is HIGHLy possessive of this now.  It's his roosting area and you better keeps your mittens off of Hueys stuffs.   He has chewed a hole on the back side of the top drawer and now crawls into his little cubby hole.   I suspect he's nesting back there but so far he hasn't convinced Greycie that it would be a good idea to join him.

[Acappella]

Good golly.  Now he's gone under my antique secretary and won't come out.  I have no way to get him.  I suppose he'll come out when he gets thirsty or hungry, won't he?

[SRSeedBurners]

Prepare for a long holdout 🤣.   Huey will sometimes go into his hangout and stay there all day.

[Greytness]

I'm rather surprised that Greycie and Huey haven't had any littles yet.

My Sidney immediately turns on the charms whenever I'm either near or holding him. He's never 'relaxed' around me. Maalik and Fynn couldn't care less about being amorous, although Fynn's only 3 1/2. Maalik is 8 and rarely does the wing drop/regurg thing.

[Acappella]

On 10/26/2021 at 7:44 PM, Greytness said:

My Sidney immediately turns on the charms whenever I'm either near or holding him. He's never 'relaxed' around me. Maalik and Fynn couldn't care less about being amorous, although Fynn's only 3 1/2. Maalik is 8 and rarely does the wing drop/regurg thing.

Do you think it is harmful to Sidney?  I'm really glad I don't have to worry about eggs, but I worry about him getting frustrated, and starting a behaviour like plucking.  Right now I'm trying to re-direct.  Put him on his playstand and then give him a walnut to work on, or I sit down on the floor and let him explore around, his new favourite thing to do.  I'm surprised he doesn't say "I don't need your food" because of the # of times I say it.  Sometimes I use a manzanita perch and move him around with that.  Do you think I'm worrying unnecessarily?

[Timbersmom]

Every bird is different. Timber doesn't pluck or anything like that when he goes through this. On the other hand, I can't say that others wouldn't. I think we just have do do everything we can, which you are already doing (limit touching, distractions, lack of nesting materials). It will pass!

[neoow]

Hopefully it's a phase and will pass.
Alfie goes through stages of regurgitating for me and sometimes he'll start as soon as I walk in and say good morning. I usually tend to tell him he's being silly and that I'll leave him to cool off for a few minutes and leave the room. I'm glad it's never got to the stage that Dorian has.

I have noticed that Alfie is now chewing a box then going inside it, which is new. Usually he just destroys the box and turns it into confetti from the outside. But the last few boxes he's been chewing holes then standing inside them. He doesn't seem to do anything inside, other than maybe chew them a bit more. And as soon as he catches me looking at him he runs back out.

[Greytness]

On 10/31/2021 at 5:50 AM, Acappella said:

Do you think it is harmful to Sidney?  I'm really glad I don't have to worry about eggs, but I worry about him getting frustrated, and starting a behaviour like plucking.  Right now I'm trying to re-direct.  Put him on his playstand and then give him a walnut to work on, or I sit down on the floor and let him explore around, his new favourite thing to do.  I'm surprised he doesn't say "I don't need your food" because of the # of times I say it.  Sometimes I use a manzanita perch and move him around with that.  Do you think I'm worrying unnecessarily?

Redirecting is what I usually do with him. Or, if he's really acting up I put him back. He still has all his feathers in spite of his raging hormones.
There's an avian tea from Greywood Manor called hormone havoc, I believe that's supposed to help. I haven't bought any to date, but it might be worth a try.

[Acappella]

I'll look into that tea, thanks.