Molting cause crankiness?

[Karma]

Can molting cause sudden crankiness and nastiness?

My little budge has been nothing but a sweetheart since I brought him home 2 months ago even letting me kiss him on the beak and everything, but all of a sudden he is incredibly cranky and snippy. He bites me on the hand, mouth, ear, everyplace, rarely wants to come out of the cage, snaps at me when I talk to him at the side of the cage, etc. Has just overall become VERY nasty, but nothing has changed in his routine or diet or anything. He is very happy in his cage and there are no symptoms of sickness so i figured maybe it was molting. Any ideas

I just realized this should have probably gone under bird behavior. Feel free to move it thanks.

[orange]

How old is he? He could be becoming sexually mature and being a bit hormonal?

[Karma]

I believe he is about 4 months.

[orange]

sounds about right... I really know nothing about budgies, so someone correct me if I am wrong but birds of that size become sexually mature at about that age and thats probably whats causing the crankiness. Also when feathers regrow the shafty bits (yep... a technical term! lol) can be a bit painful if you stroke/scratch them too hard, so that may not be helping either.

[judy]

Harry my lori, has just come out of this stage, he was a little cutie and sweetie cuddly affectionate bird, then all of a sudden he turned nasty, I couldnt make eye contact with him he got that bad, but he is back to his normal self again, thank god. Orange, I tend to agree with you as I think harry must have been going thru maturity with his mood swings.

[Berserka]

Orange is right Karma. He is in puberty & once he moults out of it he will be back to his sweet self. Just don't react (hard not to I know!) and just continue to act like everything is normal.
My Boris girls' moult lasted about a month & she was rather cranky for about 3 weeks.

[judy]

let us know how your budgie goes karma?

[Karma]

Thanks all...I didn't realize it could get that bad, but I'm glad I know now. I was really worried for a while there. He is still pretty cranky but is slowly getting better. He is coming out on his own more and not biting as hard. He is also letting me put him down and walk away a little instead of ALWAYS having to be on my shoulder. And he took a bath all by himself in his water bowl. Yay Oh and I came home yesterday to find a stubby butt. It took me a minute to realize what looked wierd about him. He had lost his long tail feather!!! I gave it to him to play with and he loved it. I tried to get pictures but everytime I pushed the button he dropped it. Little stinker