Strange Behavior in 2 year old

[Simon'smom]

I'm new to participating on the board and an not quite sure I'm posting correctly. Simon is my 2 year old eastern grey. Today he is acting very strange. He is running around in a consistent pattern in his cage, stopping to look out the window in the same spot then repeating. He has never done this before. He usually does not get up until in the morning until the sun has been up for a bit, then he comes out for morning play time. In the morning he always has 2 hours of play time before I leave for work. When I open the door to his cage and he always greats me at the door, hops on my shoulder for some kisses then proceeds with frolicking around in the house, playing on top of his cage and wrestling with me on his favorite blanket. Today he was up well before sunrise just running in this pattern, didn't seem interested in coming out when I opened the door and when I took him out he ran back to his cage went in the door and started back with the running pattern. There is nothing new or different in or around his cage and other than the odd running, he physically is fine. I'm hoping it has something to do with the solar eclipse as odd as that sounds but this new odd behavior has me concerned.

[HRT4SQRLS]

Good morning Simon'smom



I know this will sound odd but we always like to start with the diet. We want to rule out health issues due to diet because it is the NUMBER 1 problem we see on the board.
Could you give us a run down on Simons diet. It's a good place to start.

[Simon'smom]

He has Henry's Healthy Blocks (Picky Eaters) - two per day in the morning. Always Spring Water to drink. He gets treats in the afternoon/evening consisting of veggies (depending on what I have) but he likes English cucumbers, yellow squash, lettuce, kale or baked seeds (just a few) from spaghetti squash and sometimes a small piece of Henry's Health Pets Peanut Butter Stick. He always gets one almond at bedtime. He also has mineral blocks and deer antlers to chew on.

[HRT4SQRLS]

Thank you. It sounds like you are doing an excellent job with the diet. I think we can rule out health problems due to an improper diet.

Two is fairly young and we typically don't see health problems in 2 year olds that are on a healthy diet. I wonder if this is due to 'wilding up' or hormonal. They do react to influences from the outside. They can get testy when the girls outside are in estrus and mating is taking place outside. It's just a thought. I'm not really sure what's causing this behavior. One of my flyers has done this in the past but he did stop. Boredom can also cause a repetitive activity like backflipping but it does sound like he gets plenty of out of cage time. Let us know if he calms down.

[Rexie]

let me start by saying I am not a expert but I can share with you my experience with my foxer who is 3 years old now. last October say mid October he was 2 years 2 months old he started the exact same pattern you describe. He did this for about 6 weeks or so. He lost so much weight during that time. He showed no signs of aggression but was somewhat distant with me when having our daily time together. I too asked the board about this because I was so worried like you. Members gave me advice and thoughts on the matter. What we concluded was this. A captive squirrel does not need to gather up food for the winter and bury it but his body was telling him a different story. He knew he was suppose to be gathering food to bury for the upcoming winter months. Once the leaves fell off the trees he went back to his normal precious loving self but it took a while. so may be his natural instincts ate kicking in . keep us posted

[Simon'smom]

Thank you all for the feed back. He definitely has plenty of "out time". He has 2 hours in the morning and anywhere from 3 to 6 hours out in the evening depending on what time I get home from work and once in a while all day if I'm working from home. He is not aggressive at all, it is just concerning because it (to me) is such a drastic change - he usually prefers to spend his time around the house or on top of his cage rather than in it when were home. He also has cat climbers and we have made climbers out of tree stumps and Dick's was wonderful enough to give us one of their miniature display camping tents that we secured to a tree trunk climber that he plays in (his own personal camp grounds ). But for the past few days its been a total flip; he spends most of his time running on the mezzanine inside of his cage rather than out playing on all of his activity centers. Yesterday afternoon he started coming to run across the recliners or go up on top of his cage for a few minutes, then right back in to run on the mezzanine.

His cage is enormous and takes up the entire wall in the family room and has always been located on the wall that is all windows. We have the large vertical blinds on those windows that we left open for sunlight to come in. We took one section down because he kept getting on the top of them and we were afraid he would fall - so that left a section of the windows on the wall completely open without blinds so no obstructed view (but also not a lot of heat as the sun doesn't directly hit that wall), so maybe that could have something to do with it? That change however isn't new to the past few days - we took those down at least 2 months ago.

[SandyC]

I'm new to participating on the board and an not quite sure I'm posting correctly. Simon is my 2 year old eastern grey. Today he is acting very strange. He is running around in a consistent pattern in his cage, stopping to look out the window in the same spot then repeating. He has never done this before. He usually does not get up until in the morning until the sun has been up for a bit, then he comes out for morning play time. In the morning he always has 2 hours of play time before I leave for work. When I open the door to his cage and he always greats me at the door, hops on my shoulder for some kisses then proceeds with frolicking around in the house, playing on top of his cage and wrestling with me on his favorite blanket. Today he was up well before sunrise just running in this pattern, didn't seem interested in coming out when I opened the door and when I took him out he ran back to his cage went in the door and started back with the running pattern. There is nothing new or different in or around his cage and other than the odd running, he physically is fine. I'm hoping it has something to do with the solar eclipse as odd as that sounds but this new odd behavior has me concerned.

Welcome to the board. I'm new here too. My one yr female gray is doing the same thing. She has a cage but it's in my sun room so shes never in the cage. Anyway- from what I've been told here, it could be the "wilding up" phase. Also it is the time of the season when squirrels migrate n ur boy might be feeling the same thing. It also could be that he wants to bulk up for winter n since he doesn't have to he still may act that way. Is he still eating well?

[Simon'smom]

He's still running but only in the morning. I feel as though he's scared of something. He used to walk around freely (although always supervised), now he stays up off the floor. He is eating, but either a bit less or just different. He always ate as soon as I let him out in the morning. Some days he does, and other days he's not intetested.