HELP! Male IRN doing BIG figure 8 head-rolling

[willowisp71]

Hi there, we've recently aquired our first IRN, a gorgeous blue male, who is a couple of years old already. He was not hand-reared, and shies away from our hand, (hopefully we can rectify this over time) but he will take food from hand if offered through the cage. We had only had him home for a couple of hours when he started rolling his head back over his shoulders in a figure 8 pattern, almost like a dance, and we're wondering if anyone else has experienced this with their IRNs? We've been doing a lot of reading up on the breed, and have not come across any posts or articles about this behaviour, and are wondering if this is normal or something to be concerned about? As I write this post he is doing it now, and has been for the last 15 minutes almost non-stop. Any idea's or advice would be appreciated, thanks.

[sheyd]

My 3yr old H/R IRN had started to do this in the last few months- each session would last around 10-20 seconds. I put it down to boredom, so changed his cage and toys and now he rarely does it.

[willowisp71]

Hi Chocobo,

Thanks for your feedback

After monitoring Skittles for a few weeks, we finally put it down to him being a bit stressed. He now only does it at night when he's trying to tell put his cover (towel) around his cage so he can sleep, and sometimes if the music get's too loud for him. In addition to that, I also change his cage toys around on occasion, give him lots of foraging options, and have learnt to give him his space when he needs it