Pet Bird Body Language

Have you ever taken the time to watch your birds really closely and notice the different behaviours they have that can indicate an enormous amount of information about each bird ? Just as humans have a definite body language so to do our birds. In this article I will go through some that I have noticed and I would love to hear from other members who may have made observations of their own while observing their birds. Even without inspecting the nestbox it is possible to tell by the behaviour of a breeding pair when their chicks are starting to hatch. Over the 21 days your birds will most likely have been taking regular shifts of looking after the eggs with the male sitting all day and the hen sitting all night. The changeovers are usually fairly predictable the hen emerging around 6 or 7 am and the cock taking over and changing back around 5 or 6pm. Things are quite calm and orderly. Then around 21 days after the first egg was laid the sitting routine goes right out of the window. Changeovers are much more frequent as each parent take a turn of feeding up and returning to the nestbox to feed the chicks. Things take on a much more frenetic pace and woe betide you if your late taking them their soft food and greens in the morning. You won't be met with the calm happy twitters of your grateful birds, more like an exasperated looking parent pacing the perch or hanging off the front wire of the aviary indicating in no uncertain terms that you better hurry up as they have babies waiting for breakfast. If you don't pick up on these sort of signals you may not be as in tune with you birds as you could be. From the moment a baby bird hatches its very existence depends on its ability to convey to its parent that it is hungry and needs food. This carries on for as long as the chick is dependent on the parent bird for food and sometimes they will try it on even after it is weaned and usually the parent bird will respond with the bird equivalent to a clip on the ear. The one thing I love watching the most is when a chick first emerges from the nestbox. After finally working up the courage to follow it's parent who has been patiently flying backwards and forwards from the nestbox to the front of the aviary to encourage their offspring to follow, for all the world as if it is saying come on watch me, you can do it. Then once that first giant step is taken the very next thing the parent starts to teach the chick is where the food is . The parent will fly from beside the chick to where the food supply is backwards and forwards until the chick follows and starts the long process of learning to eat by itself. Then once all the chicks are fledged and all demanding food from the parents at the same time you can soon see who has the dominant personality amongst the group or who is the more quiet one who usually is last in line for a feed. Other examples of reading a bird's body language are when your birds go into a sudden panic and fly around madly then just as quickly go completely still, not making a sound. In my part of the woods this usually heralds the arrival of a bird of prey such as a hawk. I don't need to see the bird to know that it's there. One thing that fascinates me is that usually just before the arrival of such a bird you will often see some wild rainbow lorikeets screaming through the sky, yelling their heads off, as if in warning to other birds who don't have the lorikeets speed to escape, to take cover as danger is approaching. We have a lot of spotted turtle doves around here, unfortunately for them, much sought after by hawks for their lunch. Their plan of action when a hawk arrives on the scene is to keep perfectly still so as not to attract attention to themselves. Usually after a short while one will panic and try to escape and is usually snapped up by the waiting hawk. Back to watching your own birds, obviously there are the signs to look for if you suspect a bird is unwell. We all know that birds will try to hide the fact that they are sick for as long as possible, but if you are really in tune with your birds you should be able to pick up very slight changes in their personality and behaviour that may indicate they have a problem before it gets too serious. Things like sleeping a bit more than usual, changes in eating habits, irritability, being a bit dominated by the other birds more than would normally happen could all mean something is not quite right. You can usually tell when a hen is about to start laying . She will get a bit of a humpy look to her stance and her dropping will become large and runny. She should however still be eating well and generally be in good health. This is the time to make extra sure you hen has a fresh and plentiful supply of calcium to replace what she uses up laying her eggs. If a bird is egg bound ( unable to pass the egg) she may go down to the floor of the aviary and appear in some distress. The first thing to do if this occurs is to keep the bird warm and administer a liquid calcium supplement such as Calcium Sandoz by mouth. If you are unsure of what to do or the bird doesn't seem to be responding contact your avian vet immediately. Sexing your birds can be made easier by some careful observation of their behaviour. Young males will start to show tell tale signs of the first throaty whistles at quite a young age, but it is easy to miss if you aren't watching. It is best to observe them from a distance and don't stare at them or they will stop doing it. If you can't tell which one is making the noise look at their tails for a tell tale slight movement in time with the whistle. Once you have an idea a particular bird might be a male you can either shift him to a different aviary and continue to observe the rest of his siblings or make a note of his ring number for future reference. Compatibility is very a important factor in breeding. If you have the opportunity to let your birds select their own partners you will see they have very definite ideas about who they want to be paired with. If you have an aviary with equal numbers of young un-bonded cocks and hens it is quite often the case that one of the hens has the attention of all the males or conversely one of the cock birds has all the young females trailing after him. I don't know what that exactly says about those more popular birds body language to the other birds but I think I'll let you figure it out for yourselves!!