Not Doing It Right

I have a couple of young cockatiels, under six months old.  It turns out that the boy is a girl and the girl, a boy.  I have no issue with that – they’re both the lovliest little birds and very affectionate.

I found out I had their gender wrong when I noticed that the boy was backing up to the girl, and lifting her leg so she could get closer to him still, and this in combination with a particular call that got harder and faster as the ritual progressed.  I said these are young birds, and they really are, because the boy, recognising that she wants some attention at her back end, obligingly lowers his head and ducks up under her tail and stands quite still.

Occasionally if she goes on for too long, he’ll turn his head to one side and then the other, looking exceedingly bored, and as though he’d like a change of scenery.

Clearly they don’t know what they’re doing, but this doesn’t appear to matter.  Over the period of a month, their attempts have gone from two or three minutes two or three times a day, to an almost incessant continuation over a couple of hours, and then they sleep.  In fact, she will come out of her cage in the morning, hare up to the top of the cage, call him out, and they engage immediately.  He’s taken to running after her with his head bowed down ready to get under her tail.

They only engage if I’m in the room and if they have begun and I leave the room, they’ll stop.  Sometimes, as soon as I settle in the room, they’ll begin.

I’m certain this isn’t normal behaviour, and it’s certainly not successful sexual behaviour.  Besides this faster louder business is driving me bonkers, so at the risk of psychologically damaging my lovely birdies, I have stopped their attempts. At first I’d say, no, and that worked for three seconds. So I started leaving the room every time but found I wasn’t getting much work done.  Then I started chucking my red pen at the cage.  That works but also gives them a fright.  I’m messing with their heads but not sure what else to do.  Anyway after two days, today they’ve only made two attempts. They’re finding other things to occupy their time, like throwing bits of tree and toys over the table edge and following them with their beady little eyes until they come to rest.

I figure that if I stop them now, by the time they become mature, at around eight or nine months, they’ll have forgotten how they were doing it before, and hopefully do it right.  Much more satisfying for everyone…me included.