Ask Lafeber

Aggressive male cockatiel

Hello, I own 2 cockatiels: a 5 year old female and 2-3 year old male. The female has laid eggs once when she was about 2 years old, she just sat on them and got bored after a week or so. The male was introduced to her when he was very young so there was no mating behaviour, he just treated her almost like his mum (He would follow her everywhere and repeat everything she was doing, no preening, feeding or touching each other), but recently they started mating (almost impossible to stop them, but that’s another topic) and the result of that is egg laying. I don’t want to breed the birds so i just boil the eggs and bring them back to the bottom of the cage where the female sits on them. Everything was fine until the male started to be interested in the eggs, taking them away from her and sitting on them. He started being very aggresive towards her, biting and even flying after her when she leaves the cage to scare her off, the aggression is also directed towards any person coming near the cage while he is protecting the eggs which is understandable, but we are concerned about the female. I had to leave home for college and my mum didn’t know what to do, so she threw the eggs away. A month passed and the female laid some more eggs and everything was fine for a few days, but the bad behaviour reocurred. What can we do to prevent the male from being aggressive for now, and how to prevent them from breeding in the future? What to do if the female lays eggs again? I can’t reduce the amount of food because the female has liver problems and we have to provide a wide variety of food to her all the time, but I would appreciate any other advice.​

Hi,

You need to stop the egg laying, and stop leaving any eggs in the cage because this is causing hormonal behavior and the male’s aggression.

Keep in mind that to lay eggs, she needs longer daylight, warmer weather, abundant food, and a quiet, private environment. The goal is to reverse these conditions. In the wild, they get signals from nature to end breeding season, but in captivity, if ideal conditions continue to be provided, a hen will literally lay eggs until it kills her. In the wild they only breed once a year, and typically only raise one clutch per year.

Limit her light to 8-10 hours by covering the cage early each evening

Do not give her anything to use as a nest – no bird huts or tents, no box, bowl, etc. If she decides to sit in a food bowl, remove it and replace with smaller cups.

Do not give her anything to shred such as paper or cardboard.

Rearrange the toys in the cage frequently.

Move the cage to a different place in the room. Move the cage about once a week, or whenever she shows signs of nesting – settling on the cage floor for example. This disrupts her idea of having a stable place to lay eggs and raise chicks.

If you feed a lot of fresh foods, stop offering any for a couple of weeks, and then only offer them in small amounts about 2 or 3 times a week. You can resume normal feeding later when the birds aren’t being hormonal.

If she is let out of the cage, do not let her get in any dark cozy places and don’t give her free roam.

When you handle her, limit any petting to only the head and neck – do not pet a bird on the body. Only a bonded mate is allowed to groom the body. We can’t be a mate, so touching the body is off limits.

If there is no metal floor grate, then do not use any bedding or paper in the cage tray – leave it bare and clean it daily.

If the hen doesn’t stop laying, and continues to lay clutch after clutch, then a hormone implant or shots should be considered. The implant is proving to be very effective with most chronic egg layers.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda