“What happened to my baby?” Spring Fever Tips for Toucans

The flowers are popping up, the birds are chirping in the morning, what is there not to love about spring?

Springtime can be a welcomed relief for many. The warmer weather and longer daylight hours make many of us feel renewed and excited to say goodbye to winter.

However, for many bird owners springtime can be the beginning of a multitude of behavior changes. Whether it be a cockatoo, African grey, sun conure, or toucan, birds start to get spring fever!

Longer daylight hours stimulate breeding in birds and this means an increase in hormones!

You may start to see your bird engage in more nesting behaviors.

What does it look like in toucans? Here are some spring fever behaviors you may see in your toucan or other bird during the spring breeding season:

Territorial behaviors
Regurgitating food/Feeding behavior
Aggression
Calling “the flock” more frequently and louder

Let’s look deeper into these behaviors and what they may look like in your bird:

Territorial behaviors:

Your toucan may start to display aggression or threats (loud trills or attempts to bite) when you walk by their cage. They may protect a certain area of the house they feel may be “theirs”, or they may also be territorial of a certain person. I have heard all of these behaviors mentioned by toucan owners.

Regurgitating food and/or Feeding behavior:

In many birds, this is often a sign of courtship. In fact, in toucans, it is one of the very significant behaviors that toucans will do to show their interest in one another.

Your bird may regurgitate food or bring food to you from their food dish. This is often a sign that they see you as a mate. While we will often think, “oh look how cute, they love me and are bringing me food”, this can be dangerous and lead to undesired behaviors.

Aggression:

Many toucans, unfortunately, become aggressive at some point in their lives. This usually happens after the bird reaches sexual maturity.

There are many reasons why aggression may occur. But, during the breeding season, it may be more likely than other times of the year. The reason is simple, hormones!

Calling the “flock”:

While your pet toucan may normally look for you when you leave the room, during the breeding season this behavior drastically intensifies! Your toucan likely sees you as a member of their flock or possibly as their mate. So, during this time of the year, the calls increase tenfold. They get louder and more frequent.

Why is this happening?

While springtime behavior can be an adjustment for both you and your toucan, it is certainly something you can both survive! But, also be prepared. Usually the first acts of aggression I find come when the hormones kick in. You will often hear about a toucan owner wondering, “what happened to my baby?” Their personality can become wildly different. Just think about all those hormones soaring!

Also remember, that while we think our toucans “love” us. What we are actually doing is anthropomorphizing, that is giving human characteristics to our birds.

We all do it, I am totally guilty. But, if your toucan is having undesired behaviors it is not because they don’t “love” you, rather it is probably more likely hormones or a fear response.

While some of these behaviors don’t seem severe, for example calling the flock, we can all agree that aggression is the most problematic.

Many bird owners have to re-home their birds due to aggression. It is a sad reality with many very intelligent birds. Birds need lots of enrichment through foraging, play, exercise, flying, and much more. But, that isn’t the only thing that will prevent aggressive behaviors.

Many bird owners encourage nesting behaviors without realizing it, which often leads to increased hormones, which in turn can lead to aggression.

One of the biggest things you can do to prevent aggression in many birds is to not encourage “nesting behaviors”. Here are some examples of nesting behaviors:

Hiding or hanging out in dark spaces
Cuddling
Bringing food to you or another member of the family

Now don’t get me wrong, I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t admit to cuddling Bella and letting her get in my shirt every now and again. I certainly love when she will cuddle up on the couch with me while I’m watching TV. But, the key is I really limit it. I try to be cognisant of nesting behaviors and try to limit how often and how long I allow these behaviors.

You see, the truth of the matter is that I already made these mistakes when I had Yoshi, our Emerald Toucanet.

Hanging huts like this one is not a good idea to keep inside the cage. It encourages nesting behaviors.

Before we knew any better we used to have a ferret tunnel in the bottom of Yoshi’s cage. We thought it was a cool place for him to play.

This was Yoshi in his ferret tunnel. We learned the hard way that this is not a good idea and encourages nesting behaviors.

What we didn’t know then is that it was encouraging nesting behaviors. Yoshi used to love to walk through the tunnel and hang out in there. Then he started to grab some fruit, try to feed us, and then hop down into the tunnel.

He would make his little cooing noises and I swear there were times that he thought he could lure me in there!

Yoshi started to become aggressive, it was mostly in the breeding season that we noticed it. I also noticed that he started to become a bit territorial of his cage. Now I realize it was because his “love nest” was in there!

These are a few of Yoshi’s favorite spots, that I learned the hard way increased nesting behavior which eventually led to aggression.

Quoting poet Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Now that I know about how I encouraged these nesting behaviors in Yoshi, I am very careful not to do it with Bella. I want to keep our relationship as positive as possible.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Maya Angelou

Here are some tips I learned along my journey over the years.

WHAT TO DO

Tips for decreasing nesting behaviors:

Redirect behavior with training – target training is always a good go to, but any training session is a great way to form a great relationship without hormones going crazy
Don’t accept offered food
Don’t reinforce screaming – while this behavior can’t be stopped it can be somewhat controlled with the correct behavioral strategy
Don’t allow your bird to hide in your clothing (shirts, sleeves, hoods, pockets, etc)
Limit cuddling (I know, I know…this is a hard one! I’m not saying to totally stop just be aware of how your cuddling is increasing hormones)
Provide foraging activities to keep your bird active in other ways
Try not to keep hide-aways in the enclosure
- If your toucan is finding hide-aways or other places, like under the couch for example, try to redirect them to something else (maybe playing ball)
Find other ways to spend quality time together
- Training
- Playing
- Go for a walk outside (I only encourage this with a harness or in a carrier)
- Socialize with friends/family

Springtime can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. Try these tips to help keep hormones down to a minimum.

It is important to remember one thing. While many behaviors can be toned down and not encouraged, they usually can’t be eliminated. So, just remember your sweet toucan is still your sweet toucan underneath all those hormones. Do your best to not get their hormones revved up more than they need to be.