Nesty and aggressive

[MaidenKnight]

my 2 year old Snuggles has laid 2 clutches of 5 eggs in the past year, since the nesting began she is not the same bird I fell in love with. I have had her since she was a baby and she was so sweet and affectionate, but now she won't even let me touch her, she won't come out of her cage and when I try to change her water or give her food, she attacks me. I am sad because she won't associate with me anymore and I feel bad because all she wants to do is have babies. I don't want to have to give her up, but she seems so frustrated I don't know what else to do. I don't put any paper in the cage, I don't so anything that would encourage nesting, but she still does it. I am afraid that she will get ill, or eggbound, or get frustrated and start plucking, I am trying to find a breeder who would be interested in her, but I would rather try to find a solution to this problem. She also makes quite the racket these days, lots of swaking. Any advice would be apprecited, please help

[linda040899]

Hi and welcome to Lovebirds Plus Community!

Ah, yes! A nesty hen....... They can be very determined and extremely cage territorial when hormones are in control. To break this cycle, as long as she's not currently laying eggs, you need to completely change her familiar environment. A different cage would be most effective but re-arranging everything about hers and moving it to a new location will have a similar effect. Move all the perches, change out her toys for different ones. Change the location of her dishes. I would take her out of her cage and put her somewhere where she can't watch what you are doing. This strategy will work for a little while but her behavior will return to what you see now so you will need to do it again.

Read through our Biters Not So Anonymous forum and look for posts by BarbieH. Barb had Gracie and Gracie was quite the handful. Her solutions to some of the problems associated with hens are insiteful and really do work! :)

[bookworm0550]

sorry i'm no help, but i do agree w/ linda about changing everything around. don't give up on her. she's just being what she is: a lovebird. a lovebird hen to be exact. that's what they do in the wild, which is protect their nest. it's nothing personal at all. do you let her sit on her eggs until she loses interest? or do you take out the eggs right away?

[Jally]

I'm having some success with my female lovie who wanted nothing more to lay eggs by allowing her to sit on fake eggs. When she laid an egg, I would immediately take it out, boil it, and put a plastic fake egg in. She is now sitting on 3 plastic eggs and one real boiled egg.

What happens next though, I have no idea LOL As my Peaches has been sitting on these eggs for a few weeks now. But, she isn't laying any new ones and she isn't tearing my house apart looking for a nesting site....

Welcome and Good luck with your little girl!

[personatus]

Where is she laying the eggs?

[Pips mom]

Do what Linda says......also....try moving the cage to a different location for a little while. Moving things all around will sometimes help as they sometimes need to feel as if they have a secure place to lay the eggs. I did this with my female cockatiel when I first found out she was female to try to minimize the chances of egg laying......turns out, she's just not an egg layer! I got lucky!

[MaidenKnight]

thanks for the replies. To answers the questions: she lays the eggs on the bottom of the cage in the corner. I leave them there until she looses interest. The first time she went through this it was very scary because I had no idea what to do or expect, this time it was easier, she was again very attentive to the eggs, kicked one out and took care of 4. Once she started moving around her cage I took the eggs away.
I have bought her some new toys, and I put her cage in a different room during the day, at night I move her and cover her for sleep, I was told this would help reduce nesting behavior. She is still very agressive, I hope she will improve, with time.
How often does a hen go through this, once twice a year? She has done it twice so far. Also, on the fake egg side of things, if she lays an egg, and I put the fake eggs, will it stop her from laying more?
I will try to change things up a bit in her cage, but the trick is getting her out of it, she will not com eout of the cage, even if I leave the door open and walk away. If I try to go in, she attacks. She used to step up on my finger, but that was before this all started.

[bookworm0550]

no, you don't need to replace her real eggs w/ fake ones since her eggs aren't really fertilized.

can you lure her out w/ a treat or something? otherwise i guess you just have to leave her in her cage since she wants to stay in there. sorry i'm no help.

[Dodo]

Another thing you might try, in addition to the changes already suggested, is reducing the amount of sunlit time she has per day. My bird Frodo was possibly going through some hormonal difficulties and the vet suggested reducing the amount of 'day time' she has, as well as encouraging foraging rather than providing plentiful ready amounts of food in the dish (but of course building up to this gradually if she doesn't already use foraging toys; there was a lot of info to be found online about foraging, I discovered). Hope you start to see some improvement soon; it can be very difficult and frustrating (not to mention painful!) dealing with behavioural issues.

[bbslovie]

Hi, I'm going through the same thing with Bea, although Bea's hasn't laid any eggs. She doesn't really want to come out of the cage when I try to get her to but she still likes to try to get out on her own! She knows her old sleep hut is on top of the cage and she tries to get to it! She'll bite at me if I'm cleaning but otherwise she's fine. There is nothing in the cage to get nesty with and now she's taken to hanging out in her food dish! Silly birdie!

Barb :)

[MaidenKnight]

I will try all of your suggestions, thanks for the help! Hopefully I wil have some success, I just have to keep reminding myself to be patient.

[linda040899]

I will try all of your suggestions, thanks for the help! Hopefully I wil have some success, I just have to keep reminding myself to be patient.
Patience is the key when dealing with any bird. Also remember not to take any of her behavior personally. When she's in nesting/egg laying mode, her hormones are in control and she will do things that she would not do if she were not thinking about eggs. A typical clutch of lovebird eggs is anywhere from 4-8, occasionally one or two beyond that. Once she begins laying, she needs to complete her cycle so there's not much you can do except watch her to make sure that everything is OK.