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Urgent Help! Male attacking female cockatiel..

2K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  tielfan 
#1 · (Edited)
So my female cockatiel have just laid eggs about a few days ago (3 eggs) and I have noticed that the male cockatiel would also go and sit on them sometimes but when he comes out and the female is also out, he would attack her, and I mean attack her like really hard. Recently he has been biting me hard too when I try to tame him. I put him in another cage for like 3-7 hours almost daily, because that is the only way to stop him attacking her.. what should I do? Should I just keep them separate?

Btw, when I put him back in their main home, he would go inside the nestbox first thing.. but later as usual attack female if she is outside the nestbox, but wont do anything if she is inside the nestbox with him.

Edit: I forgot to add that he would also sit on those eggs sometimes..
 
#2 ·
You need to keep the male separate from the female for a while so that he doesn't hurt her badly. Did he attack her before she laid the clutch or has it only started since they've been nesting? If he is attacking her he is very likely to attack the babies, too. It sounds like they aren't incubating the eggs properly as there should always be one parent sitting on the eggs at all times, and since it doesn't sound like they are a compatible breeding pair I would remove the eggs and the nest box too and start hormone control which you can read about in the Sticky article here.
 
#3 ·
Yes, he use to attack her but when one of us intervene, he would stop attacking her.. and the female is 90% of the time sitting on the eggs and the male would too but he also attack her if she is out.. I don't really want to remove the eggs just yet, is there another way around?
 
#4 · (Edited)
No there isn't, one parent cannot incubate a clutch properly because they need to come out to eat and poop, which means the eggs won't be kept at a constant temperature. She may also struggle to feed and care for the chicks on her own, which will result in you having to help her out by handfeeding. The male will be a huge danger to newborn chicks if the eggs ever hatch, and he is a threat to your female already because of the attacks. If you don't want her injured, you need to keep them permanently separate. If the parents are not bonded, breeding isn't going to be successful.

You can leave her in the nest box if you want to see what happens, but if the clutch fails to hatch you will have to wait until she abandons the eggs on her own.
 
#5 · (Edited)
You say that the male only attacks her when she is out of the nestbox. It looks like the male is telling her that he wants her to go sit on the eggs because he is off duty right now.

This happened with one of my pairs in their first year of breeding. If the hen didn't go in the nest when the male came out, he would chase her around until she went in. So she learned to go in when she saw him come out, and the attacks stopped. The eggs stayed nice and warm, and all six of them hatched.

When you see an attack, one way to stop it is to pick up the hen and put her in the nestbox. That will help teach her where she needs to be.

Your male might have some nontraditional ideas about when he is supposed to sit on the eggs. The most common arrangement is for the hen to sit on the eggs all night, and the male sits on them for most of the day with the hen taking over temporarily when he comes out to eat and poop. It's going to cause problems if he thinks that the hen should sit on the eggs for most of the day and she thinks that it's his job to do that.
 
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