Ask Lafeber

Question:

May 11, 2020

my male conure is attacking


my Male green cheeked conure has been attacking me and my female green cheeked conure until she bleeds recently…. they used to be best friends! can you please tell me why my green cheeked conure is so aggressive towards us?


Answer:

Hi Ivana,

The short answer is “hormones”. In fact we just had a webinar with Dr Stephanie Lamb discussing hormonal behavior in birds. We will be having a continuation of the webinar this week – I will provide a link to our webinar page and you can also sign up for reminders. https://lafeber.com/pet-birds/category/webinar/

Here is the link to sign up for our free webinar on Friday:

https://lafeber.com/pet-birds/webinar-pet-birds-hormonal-behavior-part-2/

In order to understand pet bird behavior, we have to go by their natural behavior in the wild. Our pet birds may have been domestically bred, but they still have their natural instincts. In the wild, sub-adult birds will live in a flock situation where they interact and engage in grooming each other on the head. But once they are mature, they bond with a mate and will not have physical contact with flock members – in fact other mature birds will be viewed as a rival and will be driven away. So an adult bird does not have a “friend” relationship with another bird, especially if they are opposite sexes. When we interact with our birds, we have to be careful not to establish a mate type bond. This means it is best to limit petting to your bird’s head and neck – any petting on the body can trigger hormones and cause your bird to view you as a mate. Of course you are not, and this results in frustration for the bird.

In your situation, you have two birds together – I’m not sure if they are caged together – and you have been interacting with both. However, now the male has obviously become mature and is wanting to breed. He may view you and the female bird as a potential mate and feels torn. And it sounds like the female may not be ready to breed yet, so she is not receptive to him. He is attacking you both out of frustration and because two mates is one too many.

If these birds are sharing a cage, they need to be separated. If she is not receptive to breeding, he will continue to attack her and can end up killing her. If you want these birds to breed, you would need to wait until she is exhibiting interest in him as a mate. But it sounds like these are pets, so in order to keep them tame, start by giving each bird it’s own cage. If you have already done this, then the main change you need to make is to not have both birds out at the same time. He is likely to go back to being tame if he is not handled in her presence. So you might have to start going to another room when you handle him. And of course remember to limit your contact with both birds to head scratches. While he may calm back down again, he is likely to get hormonal again – many birds are like this at least once a year. The important thing is not to put the birds together again, or the behavior will continue and eventually you will end up losing both as pets.

Again I highly recommend that you view Dr. Lamb’s webinar recording and sign up for the one this Friday as soon as the link is made available.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda

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