Going Insane with My Parents' Love for Mari and Abelina

[akp124]

So as some of you may know, we had to separate Mari and Abelina because they fought and poor Mari looked like she was in a cock fight. She is healing up nicely and is even growing back the feathers she lost during the time she was being abused by Abelina.

Anyway, I was letting them out of their cages at different times so as to not find them in one cage or worse, fighting. What does my dad do today? He lets them out at the same time. They are flying around having the time of their lives being chirpy and singing. But, I am afraid they are going to start fighting when we're not home today. I told my dad, " Let them out, but if they kill each other, don't cry about it." He just told me that they won't.

He says that they love each other, that they need to be together if we don't get them mates. Absolutely not! They almost killed each other, I don't want to clean up two dead male birds if these two decide they don't like them at some point. And I don't want to clean up dead babies, or take care of dead babies. Because I know that at least one of these girls is going to kill her babies.

[longobongo]

I think if properly supervised you could probably have the two females out in neutral territory, meaning neither has access to a cage that they could consider "territory." I've been recently doing a lot of research and have been asking a lot of questions about having two birds and what I've learned is that hens should have their own living space, separate cages, but that two hens can get along quite well.

Just be careful and keep an eye on them, I think.

[akp124]

He left them downstairs by themselves and he left the door to the upstairs open, so they come up into my room where my other two birds are, luckily, in their closed cage. They both immediately went into the cage and tried to bite Annabel, the female. They left Max alone. Then, they went to one of my windowsils and started bickering at each other. I had to separate the two.

[linda040899]

Mari and Abelina obviously can't share the same cage but they will probably do very well outside of their cages in neutral territory.....supervised! They see cages as their own personal property and neither is welcome is the other's home. What I have seen, but it's usually with larger parrots, is that the entire ROOM is perceived as a home/territory and a parrot will defend that just like a cage. Supervised is the only way. Being lovebirds, they are aggressive and can do damage to other birds to the point of fatal injuries.

If your parents continue to ignore your instructions, you may have to put Mari and Abelina in one room and lock the door!

[starwynde]

I second what Linda has proposed about the locked door. Your parents don't seem to understand the dynamic between the birds (they don't seem to understand much about them period as you mentioned in another thread their desire to feed them inappropriate food and completely ignore your desires as far as what is acceptable and what is not).

That said, if they are going to act like kids, I guess you have to treat them like kids and lock up the "toys" until they learn to treat them with respect and take care of them. The last thing you need is another vet bill for Annabel, or a new one for Mari or Abelina because of unsupervised out of cage time. I would suggest a small pad lock for each of the cage doors and you hang onto the keys until you are prepared to let them out. Luggage locks work very well as they are quite sturdy and for the most part, beak proof; usually come in sets of 2 or 4 with one key to open them all.

I had a "Houdini" bird that could open any cage lock mechanism and escape so my only solution was to lock the door down with a luggage lock :whistle: