We've had Remy since April of this year and got her at 8 months old. She is almost 11 months now. It's been quiet the journey, with all of her stages since she came home. In the beginning, she was clipped and scared and bit hard enough to draw blood over and over. We thought it was bluffing and treated it as such and that "phase" went away after several weeks as we taught her to step up, etc. After she became comfortable stepping up to us, her molt started and she became grouchy and didnt like to be touched, but still had a great diet of mostly veg and some fruit and seeds and still seemed happy stepping up, etc. We actually thought she was a male until her molt started nearing the end and she started becoming super affectionate and wanted to be close - like right near our faces close - and would always get in the female mating position and cluck. We realized this was when summer was starting and mating season was in full force. So we now assume she is a female. We literally got her right before mating season!
little did we know what we would be facing!!! With that said, here are the questions:1. Moodiness - Is this a typical female thing or just during mating season? She has gotten to the point where she no longer likes to step up to me, only my fiance. Whenever I talk to her or put my finger up, she pins her eyes, bows her head and fluffs up her feathers and gets in the mating stance. Sometimes I give in and pet her head only and she seems happy about it. Other times I walk away, sometimes my fiance has to get her to step up instead. But within the past couple of days, whenever she does this and I pet her head, she snaps at my finger instead. I dont pull away, and she grabs onto my finger with her beak in a snappy nippy sort of way, but just gently nibbles on my finger and licks it, but last night that turned into a harder bite. I pushed into her beak and she let go and got in the mating position again? It makes no sense.
2. Wings - her wings are growing in now and she is becoming very good at flying. She flies from room to room, from the bed to the towel rack in the bathroom, to the perches in the living room, etc. She always follows us wherever we go. God forbid the two of us are in different areas of the apartment at one time, she will go from one of us to the other back and forth over and over. Over the past week, she is starting to fly AT me when Im unprepared.
She flew at my head last night, landed on my back, she is all over the place and cant make up her mind but its stressful because I start to duck when I hear her wings flap. If Im facing her, and put my finger out while she is already airborne, she will land on it. But other times, she will just fly around everywhere like a crazy birdie, landing for 2 seconds from place to place at wherever she wants including me. This I feel like if not hormonal could become a behavioral issue as it seems like she thinks she has control over the entire apartment including us. Do we clip again to get her to stay on her feet during mating season, or just wait it out until mating season is over? Its annoying actually as we cant even cook in peace sometimes. I should point out this usually only happens in the evenings on the weekdays when we get home from work and she only has a couple of hours out of her cage, so we've been adding the tired factor to it as well, but still. 3. Vocal - she is MUCH more vocal than the first two months we had her. She is getting louder and louder, even if its just her happy tweeting. A lot of times its communication and isnt screaming and she is just calling out to us, but its still extremely loud. We havent had any neighbor complaints yet, but we are waiting for it. It usually happens after she lands somewhere. When she is loud, we turn our backs and walk away. She doesnt care, she will be loud to herself. When she REALLY wants attention, she will quietly whistle because she knows thats all we respond to and talk in quiet voices back to her. But overall she is loud sitting, loud flying, just loud in general. Will this lessen in the fall?
4. Obsession - she becomes "obsessed" with things she likes. In particular, we've had a shower perch on our large dining room mirror for the entire month of June and took it down in July because she wouldnt leave it. There are toys hanging from it and sometimes she would chew and play on it, but she barely went anywhere else. She didnt hang out with us, didnt want to go into her cage, didnt play with any of her other toys or anything. After we took it away, she has been SUPER feisty, cant make up her mind about where to go or where to land or what she wants to do. Today, my fiance put the perch back on because he had to work from home and she was being so loud. The instant she got on it, she started clucking to her reflection and quieted down entirely. We have no idea if we should encourage or discourage this obsession with the perch/mirror. She definitely loves it that's for sure.
5. Cage time - this is really a question on what is suggested in general. Every time we are home, she is out of her cage. We have never been home with her in her cage except for bedtime. On weekdays, we usually take her out when we get home around 7-730pm, put her in around 8-9pm, and stay in the room watching tv for another hour before we leave her in complete darkness til the morning. On the weekends, we leave her out all day long and put her to bed a little earlier. Does this matter? She has started throwing fits every time we put her to bed lately. She eventually settles down, but she used to put herself to bed and doesnt anymore ever since we changed the interior a bit. Should we limit her out of cage time on the weekends so she feels more comfortable with us home and her in her cage? We feel bad, but dont want to encourage bad or controlling behavior.
6. Age - Aside from the female thing, is this all typical of age considering she is still a baby under a year old???? Will it get better as they age?
We love her, but man is it exhausting! Sometimes we chalk it up to age and we say "she is just a baby", or hormones "she makes no sense, its mating season", or tiredness "she probably didnt nap today and she is sleepy and grumpy". Other times we just feel like she is messing with us and being a brat. We want her to be comfortable as possible, but definitely do not want her spoiled.
We are jealous of all the male IRN owners.
Thanks in advance, we know this is asking for a lot of advice!
I always feel bad... I guess I need to suck it up and get her used to it.. Basically, she wants to always do whatever we are doing. I'm not sure she thinks WE are part of her birdie flock - I think she thinks SHE is a human like us - only with feathers!
he also told me that with indoor birds they can be confused of the actual seasons. We play with their lighting. We play with the temps. We feed the same fat content year round. In the wild, their hormones are driven by the hours of sunlight and the temp. Which in turn causes them to eat a higher fat and protein diet. They lay their eggs, they raise their young, then they molt. But birds in captivity usually have the same amount of daylight year round because of manipulation, a lot of us have central heating and air systems which maintain constant temps and we don't alter their diets to mimic breeding, molting, and down time. Except for maybe MissK 