Ask Lafeber

Question:

July 13, 2020

Make is attacking female, but won’t stop screaming


I have two tame cockatiels and they’ve laid a lot of eggs and they have hatched many times but every time the male always ends up attacking the female and chasing her out of the nest box. I have separated them and I put the male cockatiel in another cage with the rest of my cockatiels(there are six in total). The female cockatiel is completely fine and is taking good care of the eggs, but the male won’t stop screaming. I don’t want to put him back because he’ll keep attacking before( he always does the same thing.) He always does this and when the eggs DO hatch, he always kills the babies 🙁 I always tu to prevent them from reproducing but they always end up doing it…. I don’t know what to do anymore


Answer:

Hi Nathalie,

It is very easy to keep birds from reproducing. They are not like mammals where it is too late once they have mated. To begin with, when you do not want them to be breeders, never give them a nesting box, or anything they can use for a nest. They need to be able to incubate the eggs in order for the eggs to develop and hatch. If the cage has a metal grate, the eggs should be left there because they can’t be kept warm and will never even start to grow. If there is no floor grate, then you can try removing the eggs – however some hens will keep laying more which is very bad for her health. Otherwise you can poke a small hole in each egg with a pin within 2 days of it being laid, and this will prevent the egg from beginning to develop. You are not killing a chick – the egg has only been fertilized and has never begun to grow any life until at least 48 hours after the hen starts to incubate it. Lastly you can replace the eggs with fake eggs and throw the real eggs away – as with pinning each egg, you need to replace each egg within 2 days of it being laid to be sure it never started to develop. You can buy fake or dummy eggs for most bird species online.

Now specific to your birds, you need to stop this cycle. It is very unhealthy for your hen and not fair to either bird. In the wild, a cockatiel pair would only lay eggs once per year. Because we provide such a perfect environment in captivity, birds will breed year round if the owner does not take steps to prevent it. A captive cockatiel should be limited to no more than 2 clutches of eggs each year. It is your responsibility as the owner to keep your birds healthy and not let a hen continue to lay eggs like this. It will eventually kill her if she keeps this up. It is also hard on her to incubate eggs only to have the male kill the chicks. You have unintentionally set up a very bad scenario for your birds.

You are caging them as a flock and as such, they are behaving as normal cockatiels and wanting to breed. I’m not sure how old all of these birds are, but I’m surprised if only one hen is laying eggs. And if any of these birds are related, they should not be allowed to mate. Clearly this pair is bonded, but because you still handle them or because they were both tame at one point, the male is confused. He is torn between being a pet, and being a mate. It can’t be both for the reasons you are seeing. Once adult birds are mature and choose a mate, they will not have much physical interaction with the rest of the flock. Birds that live in flocks do so for protection from predators. But within that flock, each mated pair stays together and other flock members are viewed as rivals. In your case, the male isn’t sure what to do or where his loyalty lies. He wants to be a pet but he wants to be a mate. Now some untame males will act like this one, randomly attacking the hen once eggs are laid or destroying the eggs or killing the chicks. It’s hard to know why some males do this, but some possibilities are confusion between wanting to breed or wanting to be a pet, territorial behavior where for some reason they see the eggs or chicks as a threat, desire to breed again which makes the eggs and chicks an obstacle they need to dispense with or simply not being a good breeder. Not all birds will make good breeders and this male should never, even be allowed to have a nest box again. You can keep the pair together, without a nest box, but you will have to make changes to keep the hen from laying eggs over and over again. It is not an option to keep separating him. His screams are actually desperate contact calls because he has been separated from his mate and he feel helpless. It is very stressful for mates to be separated, especially if they can see and hear each other but not be together. And it is too hard on a single bird to incubate eggs and try to feed chicks. Both cockatiel parents take turns sitting on the eggs, so one bird can rest and eat while the other is on egg duty. Her health is suffering because she is sitting on the eggs, 24/7, probably not eating enough and certainly not getting any exercise. In a situation like this, it is not uncommon to find the hen dead in the box because she will care for the eggs and chicks but not take care of herself. If these eggs do hatch, hopefully you know how to hand feed because the hen will need help feeding the chicks.

Once these eggs are gone or once the chicks have been removed to hand feed, you need to remove the nest box permanently. Adult birds do not sleep in nests in the wild – a nest is only used for breeding season and then it is abandoned. So there is no reason to give captive birds a nest unless they are breeders, and then only during breeding season. You can put these two back together, but make changes to try to keep her fro laying eggs again. For breeding, birds need a stable environment, abundant food, warmer temperatures and longer days. You need to reverse these conditions – place the cage in a busy spot in the house, even move it to a new location every week. Rearrange toys and perches in the cage regularly. If she starts to sit in a food bowl or in any area of the cage, remove the bowl and give them something else, or move the cage around again. You should keep moving things around when they seem to be settling in to nest or if you seem them mating. You should also reduce any fresh food offerings and limit this to once or twice a week. Limit their daylight hours to 8-10 hours by covering the cage early in the evening. If none of this works, you should consider taking her to an Avian Vet for a hormone injection or implant.

We recently hosted a two part webinar on parrots and hormones and I would recommend that you view both of these. Dr. Lamb discusses these issues in cockatiels quite extensively since they tend to be the most common chronic eggs layer. I know this is all a lot of information, but you want to do what is best for your birds and I’m sure these webinars will help you out a lot! Links to both webinars are below:

Webinar: “Spring Is In the Air: How To Deal With Your Pet Bird’s Hormonal Behavior!”

Webinar: “Pet Birds & Hormonal Behavior: Part 2!”

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda

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