# Sunny is obsessed with a towel- is that a problem?



## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

This morning, Sunny flew to a dish towel that was hanging up in the kitchen and would not budge from it. I picked him and the towel up and put it on the floor where he stood guard over it and was attacking me whenever I tried to come near it. Sunny is the sweetest, most docile bird. So this behavior was completely off for him. I had to leave for work so I ended up putting the towel on the bottom of his cage. He flew to his cage and stood guard over the towel until I left. The only other time he acted this way was about a month ago, my fiance was playing with Sunny and a dish cloth, where Sunny was kind of chasing after the cloth like a dog would do. Sunny flipped out then too over the dish cloth. But today the towel was just hanging there. Why do you think he is doing this and is it bad that I put the towel in the cage? He really, really wanted it- obviously.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

I've heard of cockatiels falling in love with a dish towel before. I really don't understand why dish towels are attractive, but he may see it as his mate.


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## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

It's really weird because he's never really had contact with dish towels- but for that one time. Do you think it's bad that I let him have the dish towel or should I keep him away from it?


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

If it's making him aggressive you might want to keep him away from it.


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## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

Ok. I'll see how he is when I get home. Do you think this means he's lonely and wants a mate or am a reading too much into this?


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

My Sunny does this with paper bags. He continues to do it with paper bags despite the very real pretty girl who now lives next to him. Take that as you will.


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## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

enigma731 said:


> My Sunny does this with paper bags. He continues to do it with paper bags despite the very real pretty girl who now lives next to him. Take that as you will.


Okay, that makes me feel better. Your Sunny gets possessive over the paper bags? I guess you still give them to him? Sunny ignores everything is his cage basically but his millet. So if he likes chewing on something, I hate to take it away from him, but like tielfan said, not if it's going to make him aggressive towards me. I was hoping by letting him have it for the day the novelty would wear off and he'd be less possessive of the towel. :blink:


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## enigma731 (Aug 12, 2011)

sunnysmom said:


> Okay, that makes me feel better. Your Sunny gets possessive over the paper bags? I guess you still give them to him? Sunny ignores everything is his cage basically but his millet. So if he likes chewing on something, I hate to take it away from him, but like tielfan said, not if it's going to make him aggressive towards me. I was hoping by letting him have it for the day the novelty would wear off and he'd be less possessive of the towel. :blink:


He does. He'll charge at you if he's in his bag and you come near the cage. It's really up to you whether you decide to give it to him anyway. It's not like he's a female that will be stimulated to start laying. But if the behavior gets too over the top for you, you can take it away. I recently decided my Sunny needs a break from bags because he started getting so nesty about it that he was actually shredding his cage paper and taking it inside. I didn't want that to encourage Roo to be hormonal, so we'll see how long we wait before he gets his next one. He's had them on and off for years, though, despite the guarding behavior.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

If you want to let him keep the towel for a day to see what happens there's no problem with that - you can always take it away later if it's causing problems. But if he's actually chewing on it then it's best not to let him have it. We don't want him ingesting fibers or getting tangled up in long loose threads.


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## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

enigma731 said:


> He does. He'll charge at you if he's in his bag and you come near the cage. It's really up to you whether you decide to give it to him anyway. It's not like he's a female that will be stimulated to start laying. But if the behavior gets too over the top for you, you can take it away. I recently decided my Sunny needs a break from bags because he started getting so nesty about it that he was actually shredding his cage paper and taking it inside. I didn't want that to encourage Roo to be hormonal, so we'll see how long we wait before he gets his next one. He's had them on and off for years, though, despite the guarding behavior.


What funny little creatures they are. :wacko: I'll see how it goes. You had mentioned before that your Sunny likes paper bags and I was going to try giving one to my Sunny but haven't yet. If I have to take away the towel, maybe I'll try to replace it with a bag. Before the towel incident this morning, I was also going to try putting a small catalog on the bottom of his cage to shred, as catalogs seem to be his new fav outside of his cage.


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## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

tielfan said:


> If you want to let him keep the towel for a day to see what happens there's no problem with that - you can always take it away later if it's causing problems. But if he's actually chewing on it then it's best not to let him have it. We don't want him ingesting fibers or getting tangled up in long loose threads.


I hadn't thought about the ingesting fibers possibility. He was sort of chewing on it but not to the point where he seemed to be tearing it. I'll check on it as soon as I get home. Speaking of ingesting though, when he's out of his cage he's constantly chewing on paper. He doesn't seem to actually swallow any of it but if he does, how harmful is paper?


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Paper is fine. In the US and other developed nations the ink is nontoxic although third world countries might have an issue.

My guys love to shred cardboard egg cartons. The cartons need to be baked in the oven first to kill any poultry germs that are still hanging around.


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## sunnysmom (Sep 23, 2011)

Okay, my fiance got home and he said Sunny was sitting on the towel in the bottom of the cage and flipped out when he went near the cage. Is this some type of nesting thing? I should be home in about an hour and I guess will take the towel out if he's still being crazy aggressive. I feel bad though like Sunny is needing something that I'm not giving him?


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