budgies fighting

[budgielove]

what should i do? my girls are really bickering: i started to describe it in my previous post regarding hand training.

they are not being seriously violent yet, just pecking at each other. sometimes over food - even though they have two seperate food containers - sometimes over toys, sometimes out of the blue for no apparent reason at all, and even over playing with me!

i am considering purchasing a smaller cage to house one of them for a bit and then trying to put them back together to see if they will behave better.

do you think they will ever get used to each other?

thank you for your time. this is really stressing me out!

:S

erin

[Budgiesrule]

I think that is very normal if you get maybe two boys they will pair up and they won't fight as much because they will have a friend to play with

[Bea]

Hens will always bicker, if they have a partner they'll likely boss them around and bicker with them too so i don't think telling someone to get more budgies is very sensible advice. As long as it's just squabbling and not actual clawing, beak crunching, violent fighting it's perfectly normal. Budgies do this to establish pecking order in a flock.

[budgielove]

thanks bea!

so do you think that the fighting will subside over time because they are just now deciding the pecking order? i mean: will it get any better or will one always be mean to the other because it is the dominant one?

erin

[redgirl]

I have read on different sites that having two females together can have a dramatic outcome, not sure if it is with babies that you have got at the same time or if it is putting a new female in with an old one. So really dont know what you should do. I have a female of 7 mths which I thought was a boy and i have a female 10 weeks, I will never let them meet as I am scared of what will happen, even under supervision.xx

[budgielove]

i bought them both at the same time from the same pet store. i bought them together because they seemed to like each other in the aviary. they are both pretty young, though i think the more aggressive one - star - is a bit older than the other as her ceres has already changed color.

it is all so weird because for the first week they were very well-behaved and really liked each other and couldn't get enough of each other. i don't know what happened.

but they will still preen each other every now and then. so i am hoping it will get better with time.

:S

erin

[Donna]

Hi Erin,

I totally understand what you are going through because I had the same thing happen to me. I bought my first 2 Budgies in June and I picked them out because I noticed that they kept hanging out together and I thought they were buddies. I put them in the same cage and they picked on each other for a while, also. They still preened each other though. It's not like they were hurting each other but they would kick each other, knock each other off the outside of the cage, step on each other's tails and squawk a lot. It stressed me out too. Sometimes they are very calm together and then other times they are constantly at each other. I remember thinking, "Man, do they like each other or not?" I couldn't understand how they would preen each other and snuggle at one moment and then the next time you looked at them they would be bullying each other.

I decided thatI just had to have a 3rd Budgie( soon after I bought my first 2 because I love them so much) and it turned out that my 3rd was the calmest of the 3. After she became familiar with her surroundings and felt comfortable though, she became my MOST AGGRESSIVE Budgie. She began to pick on one of the others and the next thing I knew, she and one of the others started ganging up on the one left. It got so bad that I just took the one being picked on, and put him in his own cage. Now I only let them all out to play together. And Beaker still gets picked on a lot.

I agree with Bea in that it isn't always the answer to your problems if you run out and buy another Budgie. Afte all, I now have 3 Budgies and when they squawk, it's even more loud and stressful, ha! :D

I think you have a wonderful idea about placing them in separate cages to see if things calm down. Why not try it now? You can always place their cages near each other so that at least they'll not feel alone. You don't want to be so stressed out that you don't enjoy your Budgies.. That's what started happening to me when they were always fighting.

I wish you the best. Let us know what happens.

Donna

[pal0m1n0]

I had three females. Budgie and Pepper got along just fine, but Budgie and Squeeky fought often. I don't think there were was much in the way of conflict between Squeeky and Pepper. It just seems to be personality. It might work and it might not. It never got to the point of injury, it was just chasing away or knocking off the perch. I have also been told that female budgies are moody. I really get concerned though if the conflict goes on for more than a couple of minutes. Although since mostly they seemed to be knocking each other over, sometimes I would flatten my hand and push the aggressor over backwards on the perch just like it was being done to the others. Don't panic, I did it gently. Anyway, it seemed to break it up usually. My theory was that the aggressor was trying to establish dominance so I just pointed out that I was the dominant "bird".

[Bea]

thanks bea!

so do you think that the fighting will subside over time because they are just now deciding the pecking order? i mean: will it get any better or will one always be mean to the other because it is the dominant one?

erin
I think there will always be little squabbles but nothing to be concerned about. :) In my aviary there are always little squawk attacks over things like food, perches, mates, anything. :P

[budgielove]

thanks for all your replies everyone!

they are doing MUCH better now: they have learned that there are two food cups and they can each have one instead of both of them trying to eat out of one of them. they are still having little squables here and there over the best place to perch in the cage and when one gets jealous that i am giving the other attention. but they aren't doing it as much and they've been much nicer the past few days. now they are back to preening and kissing and not being able to get enough of each other!

:p

erin

[pal0m1n0]

You could make sure that there are two perches separated but at the same height and they should be the highest. That way they won't fight over who gets to be highest in the cage. I make sure I have one high perch per bird. They can choose to roost together or apart on their own perch.