Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My cockatiel, Nikko, is doing strange things...and what I mean by strange things is he is...well...masturbating. Now, I've read that Quakers do it sometimes, and I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing or what. What should I do?
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
~Sarah

Well a couple things you could try is changing his cage around and limiting his daylight hours. If this is in fact what he is doing it is possibly a breeding season response (we haven't had it happen so not sure). Limiting daylight hours and changing cage toys etc around should let him know it is not breeding season. Someone else who has dealt with this problem may be able to answer you better.

Stephanie

In most cases, this isn`t a problem. It`s perfectly natural for birds to masturbate from time to time. There are are few ways this does become a problem, though. Those are:
YOU are the object chosen to masturbate on.
it becomes excessive/obsessive.
it triggers territorial/aggressive behaviors.

If your bird tries to masturbate on you, put him down and walk away for a few minutes. He should catch on that this is not encouraged.
If it becomes excessive and/or an aggression problem, rearrange the cage, limit the hours of light, and remove any specific object that he`s chosen to be the recipient of his attention.

If it`s just something you catch him doing once every other day or so... just ignore it. Draw no attention to the behavior that would encourage it. Just let him do his thing and pretend it never happened.

I`ve had birds masturbate in the past... but I`ve never had a masturbating PROBLEM in the past. So I always simply ignored it.