This might be a silly question, but I'm still kinda somewhat new to birds and you're the resource I trust the most.
How do you work on wing and body handling and keep a bird comfortable with being touched all over without setting off hormonal behaviors? My green cheek is still young, but I want to make sure I stay ahead of it so she doesn't have a hard time next spring.
Thanks!
In terms of setting off hormones you really play it by ear and season.
If you are working on body handling training and happen to see the bird thin out, eye pin, squish down on the perch, raise their rump, squint their eyes, sudden aggression or present other hormonal behaviours// atypical behaviours to see in a standard training session then that's enough of a cue to tell you to pause the training. Same goes for if I were to see heightened hormonal behaviours outside of training sessions.
For some birds you can continue the training but just make sessions shorter or work on specific areas of the body (some may not be comfortable with restraint/ back handling but will be comfortable with wing handling for example). For other birds you cease the training altogether and resume after their season has passed.
When they're young this is less of a concern as they haven't sexually matured yet. As your bird develops you usually get a good idea of their seasonal changes and can begin to predict when it's best to avoid this training, doing the bulk of the practice over winter and autumn.
Here's some of my existing resources on training body handling
Restraint:
Wing handling:
Hands free wing spread (great to work on during hormone season as it requires never touching the bird):
