The Caique Site
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The Caique Manual
23. As your caique matures. As your bird matures, it will change both in physical appearance and behavior. This will help you know if you are purchasing a young bird or an adult. Baby caiques are almost completely grown when they wean, so do not expect it to grow much. Changes, however, occur in other traits. Adult black-headed caiques have snowy white breasts. Babies usually, but not always, have yellow flecked, sometimes even golden breasts until after the first molt or two. The beak is horn colored in very young birds, but as it grows it becomes black. The unfeathered peri-opthalmic area around the eye is often flesh colored in young birds, but not always. It will become black with age. The eye of an adult has an orange-red iris, while the eyes of young birds have a brown iris and appear to be nearly black. The dark baby eyes will slowly change in the first year. Less noticeable will be the decrease in number of green tinged feathers on the head and a slight broadening of the tail. Dr. Smith (1990) reports that older birds sometimes develop a few orange feathers in their black crown. The changes seen for yellow-thighed caiques are a bit different. Young birds have dark eyes that, like the black-headed, undergo a change to a rust brown color. Their breasts are also flecked with yellow and become snowy white as they age. Their feet develop a black color but not as black as those of the black-headed. Occasionally their feet will remain flesh colored. Unlike black-headed, however, their beaks do not grow in black. The most noticeable change is that young birds nearly always have dark feathers on their crown. These often require several molts before their heads are completely orange-apricot in color. This may occur in as few as six months or as long as four years (Quint, 1986).
Since I have never owned, let alone bred the green-thighed, I cannot provide a first hand account of the changes for these during maturation. The changes are probably similar to those seen for the yellow-thighed. It has been reported that young birds also have black feathers in the crown of their head. One difference from the yellow-thighed is that their feet remain flesh colored. As the bird ages, its behavior also changes. Caiques are sexually mature as early as two years of age, but more typically at three. Hand reared baby birds can be handled by anyone including strangers. This is when they are sweet and gentle towards everyone. At this age they want the attention of humans so much they will actually jump right onto anyone's finger. At about a year of age, however, your bird will go through what in human terms is called the terrible "twos." At that time it may become nippy. Usually it nips you just enough to hurt but not enough to break the skin. Bear with your bird, let it know your disapproval, but do not use physical punishment. As with the terrible "twos" in humans, this period will pass, although it may require a couple years. Once your bird gets through this period, it will bond even more strongly to you. Your bird may begin to have temper tantrums as it ages. Julian Huxley has written that humans and animals are analogous to ships commanded by several captains. On the human vessel all the captains remain on the bridge and give orders simultaneously. However, on the animal vessel the captains reach a gentleman’s agreement whereby all the others leave the bridge whenever a new captain takes command. Temper tantrums seem to be like this. They seem to have an on-off switch. You can usually tell when your bird's temper is up by looking at its eye. Caiques and other South American birds "pin" or "flare" their eyes when they are angry. Its called "pinning" because the pupil of the eye becomes very small. In caiques, pinning is accompanied by an increase in redness of the eye, which is why it is also called "flaring." When you see this happening be very careful. For some reason, the bird is no longer rational. The solution is to just let it calm down on its own. If this is not possible, and the bird is in harm's way, use a thick towel, stick or bird ladder to pick up your bird and immediately place it back in its cage. You will quickly learn the stimuli that set off this reaction. Caiques have not been domesticated in the sense that chickens and turkeys are. Their tameness was due to a process called imprinting in which the baby bird upon opening its eyes sees a human instead of its parent offering it food. You become its ersatz mother. As with most concepts, imprinting is more complicated than this. I have learned that if I handle chicks left with the parents on a near daily basis they become as tame as hand-reared chicks. These chicks appear to imprint not just on their parents, but its siblings and even humans during this early developmental period. There is also an element of learned behavior since many wild parrots have been tamed. Even so, pet caiques are only one or two generations removed from the wild at most, and instinctive reactions often surface. For example, certain stimuli cause them to flee while others promote attack. On occasion, you will have trouble discerning just what stimulates these reactions. Your tame bird is really a wild bird at heart no matter what its age.
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