Hormonal Behaviour in Pet Birds

Well, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to write about this week and I decided to talk about hormonal behaviour in Birds.

Well, I think all bird owners have dealt with some kind of hormonal behaviour in their birds. My first experience with this was when my budgie would rub himself on his ladder. Try to explain that to my friends at the tender age of 17! “He’s playing, isn’t he cute?”

My first experience with hormonal aggression was from my blind female lovebird, Luna. I adopted her at the tender age of 8 weeks. She was the sweetest bird I had ever met. She ate anything I held in my mouth (now I realize that this can be dangerous to your birds because of bacteria in your mouth), she slept on me and she would let me cuddle and touch her anywhere I wanted. And then… She got to be about a year old and all of this changed. She had morphed into this evil, aggressive, nippy, untrustworthy little lovebird. She no longer allowed me to touch her and I wouldn’t dare allow her to get close to my face. This aggressive behaviour came on decently suddenly over a couple weeks. She started biting my neck and ears when she sat on my shoulder and then decided she no longer liked being snuggled.

Luna also decided that she wanted to rip up her cage liner and anything else she could chew, including my mom’s new wicker footstool. She then built her first “nest” and happily laid 2 eggs. She sat on them for a few days then decided it was not for her and returned to her perch. She remained aggressive and still is, 7 years later.

She never laid more than 6 eggs total in her life (2 nests only). This was mainly due to me not removing her eggs from her cage until she had abandoned them. When female birds lose their eggs (their “babies”) they can and sometimes will try to replace the missing eggs by laying more. This can be dangerous as she can become egg-bound and/or become calcium deficient.

If you have a pair of birds and wish to discourage nesting or halt hatching of baby birds, you can push a pin gently into the eggs, making a tiny hole, but not breaking the eggs and place them back into the cage, in the same place they were. This will inhibit any growth within the eggs, but will still allow the “mommy bird” to tend to her eggs until she knows they are not going to hatch. When handling the eggs, please do so with great care and handle minimally, as your scent could make a female bird abandon her nest and start the process all over again!
All female birds, whether laying eggs or not, should be given a calcium supplement. This can be through a mineral/calcium block, a cuttlebone, or a veterinarian recommended powdered calcium supplement. Egg-laying depletes the bird’s own bone calcium and this calcium needs to be promptly replaced to ensure health. You can check out our supplements here: http://shop.featheredaddictions.com/Dietary-Supplements_c20.htm

Please consider other birds in your home when a female bird is experiencing hormonal tendencies, as they can become very territorial and aggressive and will bite or attack other birds without warning and can cause injury or death. I learned this the hard way, after one of our budgies was bit in the foot by Luna and subsequently rushed to the Bird Hospital to have 3 stitches in his foot. To keep her in the bedroom with the budgies we had to double up her cage, where we put her cage into another cage of the same shape so there is at least 1.5” (all the way around) in between her cage and the outside cage, preventing her from having contact with unsuspecting feet or other body parts.

Male hormonal behaviour, although can be embarrassing when your friends come over, is generally not a health issue, and it usually does not manifest into aggressive behaviour.
There are a few things that you can do to decrease hormonal behaviour, especially for the female birds.

• Remove any next boxes or similarly stimulating nesting object
• Ensure your fid does not have access to shredding materials (use a grate at the bottom of the cage
• Choose bells and other noise-making toys instead of shredable toys during these times
• Ensure your fid is getting at least 10-12 hours of sleep, it is healthier for your bird and this can trick your bird into thinking that it is the winter (which it is now) and slow nesting behaviour
• Strip out the cage and set it up differently, include some new perches and/or toys for added stimulation. This can help distract your bird, this worked wonderfully for our hormonal male lovebird. He stopped his hormonal behaviour as soon as we changed his cage around, and has not started again since (this was about 9 months ago).

If you have any stories or experiences to share, please post them. I appreciate any feedback you have.