With October kicking off....yes...it's the first and we are settling into busy so I have a bit more free time falling into the schedule finally!!
A while ago I wrote about Viggo being very hormonal. It was terrible. The screaming, nipping, wanting to entice me as his mate. I did a few things to try and curb, or assist is a smooth transition into fall and lessen the insanity.
I added LOTS to keep his beak busy when he had to be in his cage. Lots of soft wood toys, preening toys and foraging toys. When he was out I kept him busy with flight!! Lots of recall training. This really spent his pent up energy.
His diet went to way more vegetables and I cut back on fruit, seed, nuts and removed pellets. As he was still able to get outside for vitamin D since the weather was nice enough I didn't feel it was necessary to give pellets. I have never given much anyways but I cut it right back. I avoided anything cooked and stayed with raw veggies. I used his fruit as treats for recall training. When he did get seed it was combined in foraging toys to keep him busy like pine cones.
I increased his weekly showers from 1 to 2 with the occassional spray. Preening kept him busy as well. One of the things that really helped during this time was puzzles. Since I cut back on the treats he normally LOVES I decided to keep him busy and thinking by taking the very special treats of nuts and seeds and stuffing them into puzzles. I found a bunch of parrot puzzle toys that are generally quite expensive on sale recently so I splurged and I am so glad that I did. They have kept him busy and it's amazing to watch his intelligence pour out as he works so focused on his puzzles.
I've decided now that when I am out and about at stores for ANY of my pets (3 dogs & 1 cat) that I will make a point of looking in the bird/parrot area of the stores for specials and stock up when I can for hormonal times or times when I am tied up with so much that I feel horrible that I lack time for Viggo.
Now I did not try the sleep cage as I mentioned that I was going to try. I did cover his cage with a very dark blanket by 8pm though and tried to keep the area surrounding his cage quieter than normal. All of the increased changes between the diet, toys, showers, cage being covered and lots of recall training helped I am sure. I also moved toys and perches around often in his cage.
I think I may still consider having a night cage and trying that for the long term plan in hopes it keeps hormones to a minimum. I will follow up on that. Presently Viggo is settling back into his less hormonal self and I'm super happy. We've added more fruit into his diet but have still kept it down to less than we would through winter.
He looks pretty happy doesn't he? What a handsome brat he is.
