Ask Lafeber

Behaviour and next steps

Hi Brenda,

Thank you for quickly answering my question about my bird not wanting to hatch her eggs. I did remove the box and the egg as suggested.

Currently the male who mated does get a little protective and ocassionally attacks the single male bird. But the single male bird is not attracted to the female one, but shows a lot of affection and drops hints being attracted to me and shares a very special bond with me. The pair that mated are the ones that I rescued and am not sure of their age, they look young and small though and I dont have access to show them to any vet here.

As far as petting is concerned, the pair does not let me pet them, but they feel free to come and sit on my head or shoulder or eat food from my hand, I have the pair since about 6 months and the single bird for almost 2 years now. The single bird lets me scratch him on the head and neck and looks forward to spending a lot of time with me everyday.

I would greatly appreciate if you could give me some tips on how to manage these 3 in the same cage.

P.S. none of them enjoys fresh food on a regular basis, I give them brocolli, spinach, carrots, french beans, capsicum, sprouts, cooked lentils and boiled white rice. They rarely eat the fresh veggies and enjoy eating only cooked rice and the grains on a daily basis. And none of them even attempts to eat any fruit.

Hi Yamini,

I’m afraid the aggression from the male in the pair will only get worse. So far he has issued some warnings. In the wild, the single bird would take the hint and leave. Since he is stuck in the same cage, he can’t leave, and the other male or even the female may finally get frustrated with the situation and kill him. They can go from harmless attacks to real attacks with no additional warning. They have already warned him, and they are driven by instinct. Instinct doesn’t allow for the male to be unable to flee – the aggressor will interpret this as a challenge and attack more aggressively. Because these are all wild species, they act on instinct, so there is nothing you can do to make them all get along together. You need to get a cage for the single male, and be his companion. He is likely very stressed at this point, and having his own cage will make a big difference. As for the pair, since you do not know their history, I wouldn’t ever breed them. They might be related, and since they are on the small size, they may be inbred or just have weak genes.

Thank you for the update,

Brenda