Bald spot and hormonal behaviour

Hello and welcome to the forum! Please don't apologize! Your post is not long! You should read some of mine sometime! lol So, you are fine. Don't worry about it. A lot of times, the more you tell us, the easier it helps us to answer your questions! So no worries, okay? Lovely to have you and Puck join our flock!

Oh, yes! Regurgitation and biting are classic signs of hormonal behaviors. There are things you can do. One is to ensure that Puck is getting at least 12 hours of darkness every night. I would suggest you even give him an extra hour or two of sleep every night until the hormonal behavior has stopped. It tricks them into believing it is wintertime and not a good time to reproduce. The other thing is to watch his diet. Avoid foods that are high in fat, carbs and calories. No human snacks. These will trigger your bird into thinking that food is in abundance, and it is a good time to have baby birdies. Stick to good quality seeds, veggies and leafy greens. Give fruit and nuts occasionally during this time. Cut back on the protein too. Avoid soft foods like oatmeal. They are too much like regurgitated food a mate would give him.

If you can, distract Puck by getting him to exercise. Encourage him to fly – it is really good for burning off all that excess energy he is experiencing right now. Maybe provide him a foraging toy, or anything you can think of to keep him occupied. You can also try some target/clicker training, if he is up to it.

It is also best to ease off on the cuddling and scritches during hormonal periods, and no inappropriate touching below the neck. You do not want Puck thinking that you want to be his mate.

That is a shame Puck scrapped his head on the ceiling. Poor little guy. We are not experts on this forum, but if it were me and he seemed fine, then I would just keep an eye on it. The feathers should grow back in time, if they don’t, then you may want to check with your vet. Do not use Vaseline. If Puck ingests it, it can make him sick. And you don’t want Vaseline getting on his feathers.

Hormonal periods are hard on our birds and us. Hopefully, he snaps out of it soon. Let us know how he is doing. Hope he starts feeling better soon!

Thank you so much for the replies! In terms of touching: i have never touched him below his neck, as I know from experience it makes them hormonal (I fostered a Sun conure and a different parrotlet called Jack- Jack) and I have read up on them a lot.

His name is Puck, because in Dutch (I'm from the Netherlands), "ukkie pukkie" means very tiny. I rescued Puck when i fostered the much larger Sun conure (named Stinki), and he was so tiny compared to him! So Puck comes from pukkie . He says his name as Pookie though.

His hormonal behaviour has lessened ever since I followed the tip about dark hours. He (voluntarily now) stays in his dark sleeping cage for 2 extra hours. He is less cranky and comes to me for attention. He snaps less often and eats his own food and veggies. He still feeds everything, but i make sure to stop him when I catch him in the act. He gets upset with me when I do that, but I try to distract him, which usually works.

As for his head: his feathers are getting through and I couldn't be happier. I couldn't get a good picture of his head, but its looking healthy and his skin is normal. He finally decided to take a shower and it has helped his skin and feathers. He used to shower more often (I leave him a bowl of fresh water to shower in, in which he can stand), but now he kind of hates it. I don't force him to shower, but it does make me wonder how to encourage it again.

All in all, little guy is doing great with his crankyness aside. He is very active and I think his head will be fully covered in feathers in about a week or 2.

Here's a dry Puck and a slightly wet, post-shower Puck!



Again, thanks for the tips and the warm welcome to this forum. It helped a lot 💕

Little update: Puck has new feathers on his spot! There are a few pins left, but most of it is back ^_^

Hey everyone! I thought I'd update on Puck ^_^. I took him to a vet last week, because he had a slight injury on his left wing, but I gave him his medicine and he's back to his old self.
He is very active, loves to destroy everything and enjoys wandering around in his shredded paper and looking around for treats I hide.

I've tried to encourage him taking baths; spraying him doesn't do it for him, neither does wet lettuce. I've noticed that, if I pet him with wet fingers around his eyes, every once in a while he decides to shower. This doesn't happen often though. He just hates getting wet 😂😩.
He does always feel great after showering, but he doesn't like the process.

I'll let everyone know once I find a working solution. I'm sure spoiled mister Puck isn't the only bird that hates to shower.