Diet and Harmones

Jake has been a pain lately. She wants it every am/pm,she's driving me crazy.But she's over weight and i think that might bring her into "cycle".Saw the vet yesterday and her comment was something about the "Golden Arches" on each side of her keel bone. No surprise there, but we've been working on that for about a week now ,and i think the hormones are backing off some.Too early to say for sure ,hope it works. Oh yeah , Missy Poo is now on a diet.

I have read that anything that says "Spring" including duration of light and abundance of food can trigger hormone production. Roz seems to have had the experience that food abundance isn't a big factor, so I'll be interested to hear how Miss Jake does with her "diet"!

I don't think it's how much she eats but what she eats.But for most of her life she eats what we eat,at every meal.Not a lot but some,then fruit and veggies and the pellets.A couple of tablespoons of pellets will last her for several days. She could eat 100% pellets and be fine with that,but she won't be happy.I can't eat at the computer anymore and have to give her fruit or something then go hide to eat my meal.We still need to work on the harness training ,it might take a while ,but maybe we can do some flight exercises one day.

Big is beautiful Jakey-Poo. I feel yer pain girl!

I used to grab my grey by the toes and "fly" her around the house (make her flap her wings) for several minutes many times a day whenever I thought she was getting love handles.

Not saying there's no merit to the suggestion that excessive food could trigger hormonal behaviors, just saying I've not had problems with pets with free feeding. Right now my breeder greys and eclectus are always topped up with all the food they could want, eat, imagine and there's quite a lack of hormonal behavior so there's more to it, in my opinion, than an abundance of food.

Yeah i don't think it the abundance of food ,it's the high fat food she's been eating.I'm sure there's more to it than extra fat on her,but it might trigger the harmonial behavior some what.

Well things are much better.I can pet her all over her body now without all the wing fluttering,begging for sex ,etc.She's actually a joy in the mornings again. I think the diet has helped.

Aside from high fat food being more calorie dense, what is it about fat content that would have an effect on triggering hormonal behavior? The things I can think of that are abundant in Spring aren't particularly high in fat, it's later when they go to seed that the fat content rises. Or am I missing something?

"Spring"in the tropics is also the dry season when cavity nesters nest because the lack of rain fall flooding the tree cavities .So these birds feed heavy on seeds and nuts during their breeding season.The dry season last about 3 months and about the time chicks are fleghing ,the rains start and trees bloom and bear fruit.

That makes sense!