male cockatiel aggressive nesting
Hi,
We have a male cockatiel who used to be quite nice and he’s learned a lot of words and some songs as well. He seemed to be constantly looking for a mate so we got another cockatiel which seems to have grown up into another male but we aren’t 100% sure. Anyhow he’s literally obsessed with finding nests and then protecting them. He will fly at anyone who comes near and has started bitting. When we leave him/them in the cage he turns the food dish into a nest and even if we take the food dish out, he’ll just imagine a ‘nest’ in the corner bottom of the cage. Sometimes he aggressively defends the ‘nest’ and we have trouble even changing the food dish in the cage for fear of being bitten. When in a new spot in the house he’ll be sweet again for a while until he imagines a new nest. He’s just totally obsessed. We are wondering if we are somehow unknowingly encouraging this behaviour?