Dominance over food..

[steve8817]

Hello I have a pair of peachfaced lovies which are male and female.. I know this because one of the 5 eggs that the female stopped tending too was fertile... I just recently pulled there eggs after about 18 days after she layed them.. She just stopped incubating... So now about 5 days after I have noticed some different behavior going on.. When I feed, the female either chases the male away from the food or if she is eating and the male comes near all she does is looks at him and he backs off. Is this normal? I added another container of food to the cage so hopefully they can both eat together.. Are these two turning agaisnt each other?Is the female usually a dominant figure? They are both 8-9 months old now and have breed twice with being unsuccesful.. Thanks

[steve8817]

One other thing to note, is the female sleeps in the breeder box and the male sleeps on a pearch/toy.. When they had eggs they both slept in the box.

[michael]

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Hello I have a pair of peachfaced lovies which are male and female.. I know this because one of the 5 eggs that the female stopped tending too was fertile... I just recently pulled there eggs after about 18 days after she layed them.. She just stopped incubating... So now about 5 days after I have noticed some different behavior going on.. When I feed, the female either chases the male away from the food or if she is eating and the male comes near all she does is looks at him and he backs off. Is this normal? I added another container of food to the cage so hopefully they can both eat together.. Are these two turning agaisnt each other?Is the female usually a dominant figure? They are both 8-9 months old now and have breed twice with being unsuccesful.. Thanks

Hi Steve, and welcome to our community. While I'm not an authority on the breeding aspects of lovebirds for future reference I always keep a close eye on most of the activity I find surrounding such events. I can give you some details or maybe ask you a couple questions, then perhaps later on those with proper breeding experience can add their insight. My initial take here is your lovebirds are really too young to be breeding yet. A year, or realistically 15 months, is the proper age to "safely" allow them to begin breeding. How old were they the first time they bred, and how did you manage their first clutch of eggs? As for this second clutch, if you removed the eggs after she abandoned them, measures should now be taken to stop their breeding activity so as not to impose any health risks to your hen such as egg binding, etc. Removing any objects such as nest boxes, nesting materials, along with moving a few things around may help give your lovebirds a "much needed break" from their current breeding behavior. What method did you use to determine one of her eggs was fertile? (which may lead some to ask) How do you know for sure that they are in fact male and female? A little history, although there may be very little, can go a long way in helping others to provide the best answers.

What you have now is two inexperienced lovebirds who may not have reached maturity yet. That is to say, mature enough to breed but yet not quite ready for the responsibilities. Although these two came to you as a pair, because they are still quite young it doesn't necessarily mean they will get along in the future. Whether they are a truly bonded pair might still take time to be realized. I think it would be fair to say at this point while some of your hens food hoarding could be quite normal/natural, there could be other reasons besides this that could present itself later on. Really, more often than for dominance reasons, lovebirds (especially hens) will do whatevers necessary to insure the health and safety of their family or flock, and may even go so far as to run their own mate out of the house to accomplish it. Personally, along with making sure they "both" get the proper nourishment they need, I think keeping a close eye on their behavior until they completely mature would be a good idea. Most importantly, their breeding behavior.

Please, check out the "Lovebird Resource Library". You will find some very helpful information about breeding and overall care. And please, do check back as hopefully others with more experience will eventually share their views........................:)

[steve8817]

Hi michael, thank you so much for the very detailed response.. I'm very inexperienced when it comes to birds, theres alot to learn it seems.. I bought these two lovebirds from another hobbyist/breeder when they were about 3-4 months old.. I was under the impression that they were hand raised but sooned learned they were not.. I picked the two out of 7-8 baby birds.. She told me the babies were from two different parents.. I asked if she could possibly give me a male and a female, knowing it would be hard to do so she told me she would try to vent them.. I built them a breeder box when they were about 5-6 months old... and about a week after one of them had eggs.. I noticed what seemed to be the female staying in the box with the eggs while the other bird believed to be a male was constantly feeding and making runs back and forth to her.. I watched him regurataing his food to her.. I assumed at that point that I had male and female.. after about 30 days I finally pulled the eggs thinking they wouldn't be fertile... I opened a couple of eggs and there was nothing in them except a yellow fluid.. about 1 month later they had more eggs.. I was reading that you can use a light to see if the eggs will be fertile so I gave it a hot and ulled one egg to have a look see.. This was around day 20.. After I did that she seemed less interested in incubating so I thought my touching may have turned her off from taking care of the eggs.. After another 5 days or so she wasn't with the eggs at all, and spent more time playing and feeding... So I pulled the cold eggs and cracked them open to see if they were fertile... all but one of the 5 eggs seemed to be fertile... The one egg had blood and what seemed to be undevolped baby bird... I know it sounds disgustting but I really wanted to know if they were fertile...

I didn't realize that were still a bit to young to be breeding and I will pull the breeder box tomorrow... I want them to be healthy and happy... But I am a little upset that these two don't seem like they will really be personal with me.. I've tried many times to try to get them used to me and my hands but they just won't have it... I would really like them to have some babies so I can help raise them to be more hand taimed so I can keep 2 for myself and maybe give or sell the rest off.. My only exp with birds is me watching a lovebird for a friend for a few days, and he was awesome he watched tv with me and hung out with me like a dog would.. But living alone in a apt and not being home as much as I would like pushed me more on the side of getting two birds so they have someone to spend time with... i would never want a single bird spending most of its day alone...

[Chickobee]

Hi Steve;

It's really good that you pulled out the breeder box. Even though younger lovebird pairs will try to breed when they are less than a year old they really shouldn't do it. It's not surprising that they didn't quite know what to do. I've also read that a hen can get frustrated by a young, inexperienced male. Your birds may just need a bit more time to mature.

If you read the articles in the Lovebird Resource Library you will find lots of good stuff there. You can also read some of the old posts on specific topics in the Lovebird Breeding section to find questions and answers to problems other people have had.

I bred some of my lovebirds for the first time early this summer and I have now managed to get two hens to stop being nesty by taking away the nestboxes and moving everything around in their cages. I gave them new toys, but none they could shred or use as nesting material.

They both seemed determined to start nesting again even before their babies were weaned. They were being mean to their babies and trying to get them out of the nests. I moved them out to a different cage with no nestboxes and left the males to finish feeding the babies. Then, in about another week when the babies were weaned, I put the males back with the hens.

You may be able to get your pair to stop being nesty by taking out the nestbox and rearranging everything in the cage. Then if you keep changing things and giving them different toys (rotating old ones so they are new again) maybe yours will stop too.

Good luck on this. At least you know for sure you have a pair since some of the eggs were fertile. I'm sure they will get things right when they get a bit older.

And, as far as taming your birds goes, the best thing I can suggest is patience and persistence. I bought adult birds who were not tame and have managed to tame all of them by tempting them with millet and going very slowly. I wouldn't put any millet in their cages so the only time they would get it was if they would come forward to eat it from my hand. Eventually they would step onto my hand, and finally I could take them out of the cages on my hand. Now they like riding on shoulders and being on the playgym.

With pairs of birds about the best you can hope for is that they will both want to come out together to socialize with you. They will still prefer each other to you and a bonded pair will not want to be separated from each other.

I have three pairs who would still come out briefly when they had their babies. Now, my fourth pair is another story entirely. That hen is a total demon protecting her nestbox and there is no way she will be sociable at all.

You will just have to figure out your own birds since they are all different. You may find that they are more easy to tame if they are not trying to nest.

Good luck!