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| Aticineto |
Greetings all,
My name is Alfred and I am the owner of an 11 year old maroon bellied
conure. I bought Oscar shortly after the death (due to excessive
egg-laying) of my beloved Cockatiel, Jeannie. He is genrally wwell
behaved, and he has several odd behaviors that I could use a little
help with.
1. This one is most frequent. He will sit on my knee and he will
rapidly tap his beak on it (almost as if he was hammering in a nail),
and (excuse me if this gets too graphic) he will regurgitate a little
and eat it up. Is he trying to mate with my knee?? Wanting more
attention from me? Something else?
2. Actually, I do know that this one means. During dertain times of
the year, he will get very "friendly" with a bell in his cage. He will
rub himsel with it until he is finished. It doesn't affect his
mood/behavior at all, so I imagine it is okay to let him do this when
the mood strikes?
3. I am the only person to ever handle him, but he seems interested in
anyone who enters the room (maybe he is trying to tell me something -
lol). He will want to go to them, but in the rare occassions that he
has, he will climb up their arm and try to bite their ears. Is this
out of anger or his ways of playing?
4. Kind of related to the above. Sometimes when someone comes in to
talk, and if Oscar is on my finger, he will kind of crank his neck,,
sway his head from side to side, and rub is beak on my hand. Does this
mean he likes the other person or is trying to scare them off?
5. Oscar is not a wood chewer - nor does he like cuttlebones. His
beak gets overgrown and i have to get it rimmed every couple of months
or so (this has been going on for over three years). Is there anything
i can do to get him to be more of a chewer in order to keep his beak
from growing.
6. Toys. When his is exploring on the floor (I always closely
supervise him, and my door is shut), his very favorite non-bird item is
the Nintendo game controller.
A. Is is safe to let him play with it as long as I watch him.
B. Are their any bird toys that may look like a controller (with
buttons and a joystick) that may be better for him to play with?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Alfred
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| AnotherBirdLover |
1. That's kind of cute. From what I've read, regurgitating food can be
normal conure behavior. If he's vomiting because of sickness it's
really bad news, but I think you should see other signs of sickness.
2. Better the bell than your hand, you could cover his cage though when
he's doing this.
3 How long has this been going on? Can you remember the first few times
it happend and what everyones response was? It's pretty easy to
reenforce bad behavior, if you give him attention (laugh, praise,
even scolding unfortunately) then you have given him a tool to get that
attention... these little guys are very smart and they strive for the
affection and approval for flock leader (i.e. you) and on that note, if
this behavior hasn't been enforced, then most probably your maroone
belly perceives the strange as an intruder (someone unwelcome in the
flocks territory). If the later were true, the behavior would be more
like an attack on the stranger and you'd know the difference.
4. If he were trying to scare them off, they would probably be scared
(if seen Maroone bellies attack, it can be quite funny to watch
(whatever you do, don't laugh if this happens), it's very obvious that
they are attacking when that's what they are doing.
5. Probably not, but maybe someone else can answer. I can tell you I
had one green cheek for five months and he would chew on everything in
his cage except the cuttlebone, we even tried different types and
colors with no luck.
6. Both of the Green Cheeks (almost identical to the maroone belly
conure) I've owned have found an odd love for anything with buttons,
especially the television remote and my PlayStation 2 controller. at
least part of that interest is that it's something your hands like to
play with that take attention away from him. so even if you got him his
own new thing with buttons it probably won't kill his interest. I can't
imagine it would be unsafe, just don't let him chew on the chord that
could lead a bad habit and he make thing all chords are safe to chew
on.
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