had….had someone been punishing them for this?
(source)
It's common parrot-keeping advice that you shouldn't let your bird jack off because it can cause/exacerbate hormonal/behavioral issues, which can be unpleasant to deal with at best & stressful or harmful to the bird at worst. So, not "punishing" in the extreme sense, but taking away any particular object of affection, or interrupting them when they start getting frisky. [Skimming the article it says some vets even recommend surgical intervention?! which is nuts, I've never heard of that.]
I think there's probably a correlation/causation issue happening; i.e., masturbating is associated with hormonal issues, but as a symptom, not a cause.
Purely anecdotally, I've had one bird who jacked off on the corner of his cage pretty routinely, and never had any problems; and one bird who doesn't jack off (as far as I've seen/heard), but who flies into hormonal/territorial rages for a few days at a time, which nobody likes (we're working on it). So. Shrugs
interesting! maybe I’ve been spoiled by getting to work with so many “parrot people” who truly get birds - I’ve known many birds who exhibited these behaviors, and they never had their, uh, tools taken away or were punished for some self loving. skimming the comments, apparently some people were instructed to punish their birds for masturbating; glad we’re all learning something from this piece
