bird behavior and deafness in birds

[Ariel]

I've had birds for as long as I can remember,

in total we have five birds (3 cockatiels, a cherry head conure, and a lesser jardines parrot) we also used to breed cockatiels.

I personally own two of those birds (both cockatiels) the others belong to my parents, and my male spangled pied cockatiel, Spunky has been having serious attitude problems as of late, he was never the most well behaved bird, very territorial of both his cage and his lutino girlfriend Deevo. (she might also be a "Clear" pied, she doesn't have red eyes)

Lately he's been screaming and screaming more and more no matter what I do, I thought it was an attention thing, but if I hold him he just screams more. and last night he woke me a 5 in the morning by plucking on his cage bars.

He shares a pretty good sized cage with Deevo with toys a plenty, food and water everyday, has a cuttlebone avalible. gets time out of the cage, gets handled (they both do), he's covered at night (usually between 9:30 and 10pm(and when he's being especially ill behaved) and my room light goes off as soon as i go to bed. I uncover him either after I get up (when I'm up later) Or usually around ten, I know they need 12hrs of sleep.

Now, something else my mom pointed out, he doesn't look around when his name is called, or when I noise is made, all our other birds do, and as far as I know he also used to.

I know its possible for a bird to go deaf, but what is the likelyhood and how is it possible to check?

He's eight or nine years old, an offspring from my moms pair. We already know he's going to devlope problems in the future, both his mom and the only other remaining offspring we owned (all others were sold or given away) his older sister "Scarlet" died of a kidney disease, but we saw deafness in neither father, mother, or his sister.

His mom, Piper, was six when she passed, and Scarlet ten.

Other than the sudden abbundance of screaming and obnoxious behavior I've noticed no other changes.


so I guess in short:

Why is he having this sudden need to scream all the time?
What was with the plucking of the bars? (At 5 in the morning no less when he SHOULD be sleeping, the earliest I've ever heard him awake was 8, and usually he'd start the morning with a song)

And last, and least likely, what is the chance my boy is deaf? (and could that be effecting why he's screaming so much?) (this is more something my mom brought up if I didn't mention it)

This is my gorgeous boy:

 

[thumpersalley]

If your male is housed with another female, its breeding season now that the rains have started for tiels & other species. He wants out to start building a nest. He wants to be out of his cage to play. If you are feeding him seed, hes not getting proper nutrition. He needs vegis, fruits, pellets, wheat products & a tablespoon of seed a day. Deafness doesnt happen with birds often, so I would rule that out. Kidney disease & fatty liver disease are related to feed & poor genetics. Kim

 

[Ariel]

If your male is housed with another female, its breeding season now that the rains have started for tiels & other species. He wants out to start building a nest. He wants to be out of his cage to play. If you are feeding him seed, hes not getting proper nutrition. He needs vegis, fruits, pellets, wheat products & a tablespoon of seed a day. Deafness doesnt happen with birds often, so I would rule that out. Kidney disease & fatty liver disease are related to feed & poor genetics. Kim

I wouldn't doubt it has something to do with the breeding season, I've just never noticed this behavior before and i don[t think he acted this way last fall. But he's out of his cage plenty and he just paces and screams, occassionally he'll go chew on my wall, but thats it.

It has nothing to do with nutrition, they get a cockatiel seed and pellet mix and are offered fruits and veggies weekly (which they usually don't take, which is why we stopped offering them more often, our conure won't take anything other than her packaged diet no matter our efforts) and when we have it I offer them the pasta mix from some company thats usually pretty good, I can't rememeber the name, which they always take, though I haven't seen it avalible lately. My moms not a nutritionist, but she's a vet tech that speciallizes in birds and reptiles.

I never feed more pellet than is already mixed in his food, we used to do so and we (and the doctor) believes that the pellet diet sped up the process of the already genetic kidney disease, thats why we believe his mom, Piper, showed illness and died much quicker (at the age of six) than her daughter , Spunky's sister, who showed no illness and died at ten. I don't think it's well known, but a small percentage (1%) can't take pellets, since we learned this we've been much more careful with offering pellets to our cockatiels, especially her offspring.