Two female or not Two female

[stew kazzoli]

Wasn't sure where to post this so I figured it might fit under "Behavior".

I recently just purchased 2 creamino lovebirds with hopes of breeding them.
The breeder assure me they were a male and female, bonded and that they are proven breeders as they had laid and raised chicks for him in the past.

For a week or so, I could not believe how fast the female was shredding all the fresh newspaper I would put in the bottom of the cage before I left for work in the mornings.
When I got home, it would be all shredded. This has been happening for a while and I figured she must be in shredding mode as she must be getting ready to mate and lay eggs in her box.

Today, I cleaned the cage and removed all the shredded paper and put down some new paper for them. Within minutes they (Sunny and Daphny) came out of their nest box and began shredding like little machines and stuffing the shreds into their tails.

Here is my question: from all the reading I have done, it was my understanding that only the female shredded,stuffed her tail and took all the materials back into the box to build the nest. Do males do this as well or does this automatically mean I have two females?

Thanks for your input.

Stew

[linda040899]

Stew,
If I were a betting person, my bet would be on 2 hens. There are a couple of reasons I'm saying that. First of all, Creamino is a sex linked mutation and only certain breeding pairs are capable of producing males. Creamino x Creamino is obviously one combination. The other one is Creamino hen x Non-Creamino male/ino. That's it, no other possibilities and that's why there are usually more Creamino hens than there are males. A non-visual hen paired with a Creamino male is going to produce Creamino hens and all males will inherit the ino gene from him. A Creamino hen paired with a non-visual, not split ino male will produce all non-visual babies but all males will inherit the ino gene from her.

The paper shredding skills of female Peachie cannot be matched by any Peachie male. Some try but their efforts pale in comparison to a female. In all species of lovebird, hens actually build the nest.

I would probably DNA sex both birds. You may very well have 2 proven lovebirds but they may not be proven with each other..... The other thing you can do is wait and see which one lays an egg and DNA sex the other bird.