Until recently.
If I walk up to her cage and make smoochy noises at her, she will lean forward, and start making the same noises back at me. Her pupils get super tiny and she keeps making the noises over and over and over again staying in a leaned forward position. When she is doing this I can pet her anywhere on her body, even scratching her on her little head without her caring; in fact, she enjoys it. This is such a sudden change in her behavior that I am paranoid that this is some sort of mating ritual or hormonal thing. I hope that it is not, as it is the first time she's let me pet her since we've had her. I don't, however, want to encourage any undesirable behavior or egg laying...we've got a cockatiel that is a chronic egg layer and an eclectus that is so hormonal right now it's nuts.
Surely, I can't be the mate for all my birds!! (just kidding).
Now, if I dont' make the smoochy noises, and just walk up to her with intentions of petting her, she flies away and tries to get as far away as possible. It's almost like she's in some sort of a trance when she's doing this and I can't seem to figure out what is going on....why all of a sudden....and why won't she let me handle her at other times, except when she's acting in this behavior...
Any thoughts??? Overall lately she is much better and seems less scared of us too, so we are happy with her improvement...even if it has taken 10 months, it has been worth it.
At the moment, i have 3 Hens that i bred and handreared last season, 2 of them are very nasty and bite anything that moves, but when i make kissing noises they go into a trance and will let me pat them and preen them. After awhile, you don't even have to make the noises, they will just get used to your hand touching them all the time. I usually pat them on the back of the head, they love getting scritches. Occasionally, i will pat them on the back, mine are only about 4 months old so i don't have to worry about eggs or anything yet, but they are hormonal.
