Bad Fighting..long

[RowB]

Hi everyone,

Some of you may remember me from before the site changed, My name is Rowan, I live in South Wales and I have 11 lovebirds in 3 cages, 2 pairs and the other cage has parents Gobbie and Twistie and their 5 kids who are now 2 years old. (One of which, Longshot, was saved by Linda via email when she was born whoc diagnosed her as dehydrated when the vet had no clue, still so grateful for that Linda!)

Anyway, everything has been fine for 2 years but over the last few weeks there have been more and more fights in the big cage which has resulted in Twisty being held down by 2 of her children and having all her cheek feathers plucked out this morning.:omg:
Now they are all looking really raggy as each one of them has a clump of feathers missing from somewhere and we have had an eye gouged after a particularly serious fight (which has healed really well after antibiotics.)
They are fighting over the bottom of the cage as they are all shredding and tucking and making little nests which I destroy as soon as I spot them.
They split into the parents, another pair and a threesome (2 males and 1 female, which are the ones causing the problems)

I cant separate them as we dont have the room/money for another cage so I desparetly need ideas of how to stop them. I have tried new toys, which works for about 10 minutes!

I have newspaper in the cage and cant leave it bare as it is a plastic mesh type and gets really gross with all 7 of them pooping on it!

Would nesting boxes help? The cage itself is massive (its more like an aviary) so I could easily fit some boxes in.

Please any ideas would be very very gratefully received!

thanks!

Rowan

[linda040899]

Hi Rowan,
I remember you from out other location and I remember Longshot! Welcome to our new community!

You are not going to like what I'm going to tell you but you have not choice but to remove the offending lovebirds from the cage that they are in. If you don't, you will be findings corpses on the bottom and it won't be pretty. You were very lucky that only feathers were removed this time. Lovebirds kill by splitting open the back of the victim's head. If you don't have room for another cage, can you partition the one the you have? You need to assure that these birds do not have access to each other. Some parents can co-habitate with their children, while others cannot. Yours fall in the later category. I can't see nestboxes making the situation any better.

[RowB]

Hi linda!

Bugger. I thought you might say that but thought it would be worth checking.

We already have 3 cages in our sitting room and would need a big one to house the 3 problem makers, plus I am a childminder so can't use up too much of my space with birds...Oh well...shall have to start looking for a new cage.

I have taken the paper away from the bottom of the cage as I cant be in the room all day and I havent heard any fighting or squabbling so might leave it like that for a few days and just wipe it a few times day to keep it clean, anythings better than injured birds.

I am lukcy in that I work from home so am in the room all day with them, but I have suffered a few scratches from actually having to physically pull them apart while they are death rolling on the floor. Its so frightening, I have had birds for nearly 20 years and never seen anything like it, vicious little sods!

nice to hear from you and shall prob be around a bit more...

Row

[linda040899]

Hi row,
Until you can get another cage (please make that a priority, must do thing!), a water bottle is the easiest way to get them to separate. I don't use the "mist" setting, but rather, full stream. Most birds don't like getting wet that way (unless you happen to be Ginger, my CAG)!! I've had several lovies unexpectedly killed in this manner and nighttime is always the most dangerous. Most of the time, you will hear flapping and noise in the beginning but then the victim just gives up and it's all over. I remember the afternoon I walked out into my aviary just in time to see a male lovie biting the living daylights out of a female that he did not like. He had her on the bottom of the cage and he had bitten her countless times. She just sat there and didn't move..... :( I separated her out and put her in a hospital cage for recovery. Turned out that the bulk of her injuries were bruises but it would have gotten worse as the male's attack escalated.

[Cathy]

Hi Row,
I have joined the group while you were away. I have 2 p'lets and 2 lovies and 4 cages. I was going to say luckily but then I rethought that because I now have plenty of extra room since my third son left home. I don't feel lucky because I miss him. Anyway, it is nice to hear from someone from the BK. My mother-in-law is English and still has her accent after being in the US for almost 60 years and my husband was born in Wales. What a beautiful country!

Besides the fighting, if your birds are in nesting phase that means that the birds would be mating with brothers and sisters and that is also not a good situation. I wouldn't let any of the eggs hatch, if they do get laid. Just more reason to get more cages. Do they have bird fairs in the UK?