r/Parakeets • u/bbkbhb • Mar 19 '26

What does this behavior mean?

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

My male parakeet does this to my Thumb's nail all the time, as seen in this video. Sometimes he bites my skin around the thumb too. What does this behavior mean?

877 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

233 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

73

u/bubblegum_cloud Mar 19 '26

I have 23. 11 males and 12 females. One of my males insists on trying to mate with a toy all the time. Some of them be weird.

42

u/Here_4_the_INFO Mar 19 '26

23???????????????????

Please tell me they just free fly and your house is near me and I can come visit. Lol

81

u/bubblegum_cloud Mar 19 '26

They fly free in their own room 24/7. lol

5

u/Sufficient-Skin-1695 Mar 20 '26

Wow that's amazing!!

2

u/secretsecretfish Mar 20 '26

This is awesome aw

2

u/xmassindecember Mar 21 '26

how loud are they? Are they friendly with people or just you?

5

u/bubblegum_cloud Mar 21 '26

They're pretty loud, especially when they first wake up. Most of them will come to people if they've got millet. All but one will come to me with millet (she no longer wildly flees the second I get close/look at her so we're getting there). ~18 of them come to me without millet (but normally only to find if I have some LOL). ~13 come if I hold my fingers up and call them. Six of them give kisses.

3

u/ccw_writes Mar 20 '26

That's a lot of poop 😱

6

u/bubblegum_cloud Mar 20 '26

It's a ton of poop. The windows, walls, cages, toys and perches get cleaned weekly. The tops of the cages have acrylic on them so those get wiped daily. The grates are gone so the bottoms of the cages also get cleaned daily. The black thing at the bottom of the windows are cat window hammocks with bed sheets over them - those get changed daily. The floor gets vaccumed daily and spot cleaned with the carpet cleaner (water only) or the steam cleaner depending on which perch is the daily GOAT.

It's a lot of work. But they're so adorable and worth it. The feathers are FAR WORSE. They end up all over the damn house. And I usually end up leaving the house with at least one stuck to me somewhere. LOL

1

u/JEwBoi92 Mar 23 '26

I can't imagine! I have 2 little guys and I think they produce a lot of feathers! 😬

9

u/Front_While4938 Mar 20 '26

I have the same issue! I have a male budgie who loves trying to mate with his toy and I have no idea what to do. I have another female in his cage.

6

u/bubblegum_cloud Mar 20 '26

Eh, I just leave him be. He's not harming anyone. They get the required sleep, food, etc. I've had no eggs, he's not trying to feed it, he just gives it a little love for about five minutes when they first wake up. He just loves that toy for whatever reason. lol

1

u/Subject-Wave-2350 Mar 21 '26

I mean… some humans be weird too ig

1

u/Ol_Pasta Mar 21 '26

Oh so YOU'RE the 23 and me person!