Too many hens?

[jankins13]

So long story short, I have ended up with 4 love birds now. Basically it comes down to the dad and 3 of his daughters. Is this a good arrangement? The reason I ask is because I have had the 2 females for a while, and they seem to be “paired” for the most part. Now that these other two are here, it seems that they all fight over him sometimes (even thought they still seem to be paired to each other most of the time). I am figuring they are all 3 females because I have seen them all do the “airplane dance” and they are all very aggressive at times.


The other part is he lost his mate (their mom) and has been picking out all of his feathers. I took him to the vet and he gave me some stuff to drop in the water for anxiety I guess. It hasn’t worked yet, but I will give it a little longer. I don’t really know what to do. I would get more birds but I now have all four in separate cages because of the fighting and I cannot have any more birds in their own separate cages. It’s just too much. Well let me know if anyone has any suggestions.

[linda040899]

One bird/cage will certainly solve the problem, but I think you might be able to narrow that down to 2 cages, if the lovies will cooperate (big word here is if!)

You said you have 2 hens that were getting along at one point, correct? Can you put them in a cage the way they used to be or isn't that working anymore? It's possible to have 2 hens get along and never fight, while others will kill each other if left alone for 5 minutes! That would leave dad and a daughter to live in the second cage.

Is this workable? The only danger I see is dad mating with daughter.....

[jankins13]

well my two original females (the ones in my avatar) basically can only be in a cage togeter with ANY bird only for a short while. They always end up in a fight no matter how much they get along. And they really "get along" sometime if you know what I mean!

Now the Male and the new female CAN be in a cage together for long periods of time, but she will really bully him around, but it isn't half as bad as the other birds do. Right now I am giving him treatment so I have to have him seperate for a while as to not treat the other bird to.


I dont' know, I see some really weird dynamics with these birds. They seem paired, then they will flirt with the male and fight, then an hour later be together doing gross things in the hut. The two females definitely seem paired, but they still fight with each other pretty bad sometimes. The new female seems to be paired with the male SOMETIMES, other times it seems they don't care one bit about each other. It is strange.

[linda040899]

If the 2 hens fight with each other, keep them separate. Eventually, the dominant one will win and you will find a corpse on the bottom of the cage. Trust me. It's not pretty!

If you can pair the male with one of the females, that sounds like a viable option.