Bullying Lovebird

[sintpaljaske]

Hi

It has been awhile since I have been here and most of the time our lovebirds (Boontje, M and Arthur, F) got along well with the occasional squabble.
But in the last months Arthur is really dominating Boontje and started to bully him: chasing him around the cage, pulling out feathers etc. Boontje is getting a bit bald on top. Boontje is now also starting to look a bit depressed.
I tried behavioural remedy, rewarding when behaving well and ignoring bad behaviour. But it didn't work.
It started to get really bad after they mated quite a lot but I didn't provide them a nestbox, so it might be a bit frustrated mother instinct in Arthur?

I have been considering separating them but am not sure how both would react and two cages would take up quite a bit of space. I was considering dividing the cage down the middle but not sure what material to use.

Advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot!
Sint

[cp.lovebird]

This is a difficult (and pretty common, I think!) situation. I have had a hormonal, nesty hen bite her mate on the foot and make him bleed. I was lucky he didn't bleed too much and I did take him to the vet to get looked at. I think when their hormones go into overdrive, lovies can get quite aggressive. I would watch them carefully and separate them if this aggressive behaviour continues. Perhaps the male needs some time to grow back his feathers and then she may not pick on him as much when/if they get back together. You could try them with out of cage supervised play time to see how they do before housing them together again. Good luck! I know this can be quite stressful to deal with.

[linda040899]

Are you very, very sure you have a male and a female? I've seen nesty hens get aggressive with their mates but it's usually short lived. I've also had pairs of hens that get along and then, suddenly one becomes aggressive with the other.

Depending on how you feel when you watch this, you may have to split the cage down the middle. A piece of plexiglass would work or you can get a piece of hardware cloth on use that as a barrier. One is very capable of killing the other so this bears close monitoring.