poicephalus:

I’ve gotten a couple of messages prompting me to do that “behavior and enrichment” post I suggested I might make a while back, so I thought I’d finally get around to it – while also touching on the subject of hormones as well, since hormones and behavior are two subject often related to eachother. 
Let’s get into it! It’s gonna be a long one… 

Hormones
So, your parrot is acting out because he’s hormonal. She’s being vicious because she’s going through puberty. He’s mad because it’s mating season. She’s going through her bluffing stage. They’re just at that age. It’s just that time of the year.
….But what does that mean? And is that really all there is to it? What specific behaviors are at play here? Are all problem behaviors hormonal issues, and, can hormone-related behavioral issues not be solved until it goes away by itself (when mating season is over, or the bird has finished going through puberty)?

Yeah, it’s true that hormones do have the ability to stir up a mess in a parrot’s life. They’re not designed to live like this – they weren’t designed to be indoors with constant temperatures and artificial lights, they weren’t designed to have a (human) partner who’s always touching them. It’s absolutely not unexpected or unusual for these hormones to do act up sometimes, and that’s sure to be stressful for parrot and human both! There have been records of parrots getting hormone implants, resulting in a reduction of problem behaviors such as screaming, biting and plucking, and that’s great!
But is that always the case when a parrot is exhibiting problem behaviors?
And if it IS hormones, is a hormone implant or “waiting it out” the only solution available?

The thing is – whatever underlying circumstance or label may affect a behavior (unless it’s physical health issues or sickness), there’s always a way to change the behavior.

Behavior is rational. Every behavior has a purpose; in any given situation we behave in order to get what we want (even if it’s as simple as scratching an itch). It doesn’t make sense that because it’s a certain time of the year or the bird is of a certain age, they stop behaving rationally. Yes, certain behaviors may be amplified, but they still come from the same place, they’re rational, they fill the same purpose, and you can work with them, just like every other, non-hormonal behavior.
So, what ARE the signs of a “hormonal” parrot? That seems to differ depending on who you ask, but the general consensus seems to be aggression, territoriality, biting, screaming, “dominance”, and nesting/mating/regurgitating (though these last three I won’t go into in this post – they’re an entire subject of their own and usually needs a different approach).
Now, biting and screaming are things we can work with – observable behaviors. With aggression and territoriality we’re getting back at the abstract labels again – allow yourself to look past those labels and assess what observable behaviors it is that you are interpreting as those things. Does aggressive mean biting, lunging, attacking, or just eye pinning, tail flaring, pacing? Does territorial mean any of those things or something else – are the two concepts the same or do the behaviors look any different? Is the setting the only difference?
As far as dominance goes, that’s… Not even worth getting into. Dominance in parrots isn’t a thing! Thanks. For further reading, there’s a great post by @flock-talk on the subject here: (x)

Hormonal? Dominant? Aggressive? …Or just an appropriate response to something I could have done differently? 

When you’ve boiled it down to behaviors, not labels, you can start working on correcting them! “Lunging when I put my hand in the cage” is an observable behavior that you can work with, you can assess the antecedent to the behavior and you can look at the consequence, and from there you can work on changing one of those in order to change the behavior. I was going to include how to do that in this post as well, but that would have been a very long post, so for now I’ll refer to this very good article: (x) 
(I might do a post on changing or correcting problem behavior as well sometime, I do have a couple of experiences to share on the subject that might help shed some light on the concept, maybe?)

A parrot who bites, screams, attacks, etc is most likely a stressed parrot. Hormones or no, there’s no reason to just sit and wait for it to solve itself, because chances are you might unknowingly be doing something to contribute to that stress and to trigger that behavior.
“There’s nothing I can do about this issue” is a bad mindset and contributes to poor handling and continued behavioral problems, especially when applied to “bird puberty” – which is usually what we assume is happening when a baby bird starts communicating that they’re uncomfortable with situations they allowed when they were babies who didn’t know better. Our response is too often to keep doing the things that make them uncomfortable just because “well, she let me do it last month”, “she’s just acting out”, and “I need to show her that she’s not the one in charge here”. All potentially harmful approaches, not least to your relationship and trust-bond.
You shouldn’t wait it out, and you definitely shouldn’t try to assert any sort of dominance to the situation.
Instead, empower the bird with the ability to control their environment – because that’s what those behaviors are trying to do. You have to work out how you can help them control their environment in a less stressful, more positive way.
Don’t make them do anything they don’t want to do – instead make that thing more desirable so that they DO want to do it!
Figure out what’s causing the “bad” behavior. Analyze the specific behavior. Assess what antecedents and consequences the behavior has. Then change it. Change what’s happening before, or what’s happening after, and when done right, the behavior should have no reason not to change with it. (Do absolutely read the article I linked above, it really is great and does a whole lot of a better job explaining things than this!)

And…. Make sure you’re providing a good, enriched environment.

Enrichment
As most of us who share our lives with parrots will agree, they’re quite complex creatures. They can be hard to understand, hard to handle, and hard to keep happy and healthy in our homes.
One major key to their health and happiness lies in their enrichment; the objects and activities we provide for them to be able to perform natural behaviors, such as chewing (wooden toys), keeping clean (bath dish/spray bottle/shower – access to regular baths), social interaction (spending time, actively, with your bird, or if possible, allowing your bird to meet other birds for positive interactions), foraging (different kinds of foraging toys, including puzzles and shredding toys, where they’re encouraged to work for food), flight (birds don’t just fly out of necessity, they also fly because it’s fun – especially in captivity where they can’t fly nearly as much but still have all the innate energy to do so), problem solving (training, foraging), etc.
But, what effect could the spaces, toys and environments you provide for your bird have on your relationship with them? How does enrichment affect their behavior towards you?

If you know me or have followed my blog for a while, you know that I sure do love “a shrubful of berries” as a form of foraging enrichment. 

Well, one answer can be found in understimulation.
A parrot who isn’t properly enriched, who doesn’t have a large cage or enough toys, and who isn’t provided with a healthy way to release energy and perform natural behaviors, is naturally more likely to be frustrated, and, to focus all of that built up energy on the one form of active enrichment they do have access to: you. If they have no toys to chew, they’re more likely to chew on your clothes, your furniture and your skin. If they have no space to fly and be active in their cage when you aren’t around, they’re more likely to “attack” you out of overstimulation when you are around.
If they’ve got plenty of space, toys, foraging opportunities and other forms of enrichment to indulge in when you’re away, they don’t have that same built up energy to release on you. Understimulation when you’re gone leads to overstimulation when you’re there. There’s no balance, and that usually results in a bird who doesn’t know WHAT to do with all that energy and stimuli that’s concentrated on one specific situation.

Another point I’d like to bring up is their ability to choose their form of enrichment, and that includes choosing to hang out with you as well!
See, if they only have a few different toys to choose from, or just toys of the same kind, they’re more likely to get tired and not interact with those enrichment objects, thus staying passive and unenriched for most of the day, even if those are usually their favorite toys. If they get to choose from different textures, different mechanisms, different tastes, different colors, different senses to stimulate, etc – they are more likely to explore and keep active.
Parrots (and all animals) are most comfortable, and confident, when their actions have consequences, when they’re empowered and able to help control their own environment. This includes training, foraging, interactions with us and/or other birds, playing, and of course also choosing WHEN to fly, play and be active or sociable, and WHEN to step back, rest and just take it chill.
One way to allow them to achieve this ability to choose, is to allow them to come out of their cage on their own – keep the cage doors open when you’re in the room, and wait for them to come out to hang out with you. Spend time with them (training is a REALLY good form of enrichment as well – and if you’re training useful behaviors like recall, target, voluntary nail trims, etc – that’s just a lovely bonus), pay attention to them, talk to them etc, when they choose to hang out with you. If they want to be somewhere else, allow them to. I absolutely suggest setting up several play areas outside of the cage for them to spend time on when they feel like doing so! Most parrots ARE usually going to have some extra energy when you’re around, because parrots are innately extroverted and get excited about spending time with their people – so having multiple spots for them to play, climb, fly back and forth from, chew toys, etc, even outside of the cage where they’ll spend time with you, is going to be very helpful in allowing them to use that energy in a positive way!
You can of course initiate interactions and pick them up as well, but you should pay attention to their body language and if they don’t seem to want to be picked up, either leave them to their thing or make yourself a preferable place to be (suggestion: treats)!

A good play area for your bird might even prevent them from ruining your entire wallpaper… If you’re lucky.

A properly enriched parrot is going to be a lot easier to work with in regards of training as well – I know I struggled with Rowdy Amazon Boy Drogon and his excess energy a lot more a couple of months ago, when the bird room was the no-cage living space for the smaller birds so he couldn’t spend too much time there, I had no outdoor aviary yet, and he didn’t have an Amazon friend to talk to and interact with. Now he’s got a much larger cage, in the bird room, so he’s always surrounded by the other birds and has someone to talk to and something to watch even when I’m not around, and he gets to spend at least a couple of hours each day in the bird room (with lots of enrichment and play areas and climbing things and trees and stuff) or the outdoor aviary (also lots of enrichment – including the sounds and sights of the outdoors, which has proven VERY enriching for all of them beebs!) – and he’s a lot calmer, and a LOT easier to work with and train now that he isn’t always over-excitedly using a full day’s worth of energy concentrated on this one training session.
I know he was just being a rowdy youngster with lots of energy and not enough of an outlet for it, but his behavior (biting, “attacking” hands, over-excited body language when approached, often too wound up to properly work with) could have VERY easily been interpreted as “aggressive” and even “hormonal”. But thinking of it like that would have given me nothing to work with, because again, those are pretty undescriptive labels.

So, in conclusion, while hormones may or may not be the cause of a problem behavior in a parrot – those behaviors can most often be both worked on, and prevented beforehand! And I really do believe that the very common “oh, it’s just hormones” attitude is.. Kinda counterproductive. It creates a mindset of “there’s nothing I can do about this”, which is wrong, and also inherently includes “this isn’t caused by anything I’m doing or that I have control over”, which is usually also wrong.
Providing nice big spaces, enrichment of all kinds, plenty of activities and positive interactions, training, and allowing your bird to help control their own environment and the outcome of their actions in a positive way, is setting up your bird for behavioral success – no matter age, season, or amount of hormones!

I absolutely do advocate being aware of hormonal triggers and trying to limit those as much as possible, because they do help cause and amplify problems. But this should be done as a preventative measure, in addition to enrichment, training and understanding your bird and their behaviors – not treated as a solution to the behaviors themselves.