Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 10:50 pm Post subject: male interference?
Hi folks
It seems you never have enough knowledge where birds are concerned! My latest query/problem is that my young female has laid 4 eggs and was sitting on them but the male has chased her out of the box. Why?
They are in a large aviary with another pair of Kakarikis and a pair of Kings but there is no infighting and the female generally dominates every other bird except her chosen mate. Any advice?
Has the male teamed up with another female?
He may have marked that nesting box as his.
Remove the male
I would then lock the female in, then relocate the nesting box at a different height.
Then move an mt nesting box close to but not in the same position...preferably a box of a different shape.
Return the male after a couple days.
I am only guessing at a son here, have never had such a problem. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
We have experienced a similar situation with one of our pair of Kakariki. Some cock birds like to spend a lot of time in the nest box whilst the hen is sitting. In most cases this doesn't create a problem, but if the hen is nervous or jumpy she will sometimes fly out of the box in a panic when the cock bird enters.
My suggestion would be to remove the cock bird and leave him out. Compatability in pairs relies on both birds working together to raise the young from start to finish. Our experience has shown that a cock bird that is aggressive toward his mate will ultimately show similar aggression toward the young either in the box or once they have fledged.
There are ways to combat this problem. We leave our pair together until the hen starts to lay her eggs. At this time the cock is removed to a seperate aviary and that is where he stays. The hen does the incubation and raising of chicks solo. Once the chicks are independant we give her a rest for around 6 weeks and then put the cock bird back in.
Using this method we have had 3 successful clutches and as long as there is plenty of fresh food the hen has no trouble carrying out all her duties.
In our case it is one of our very rare mutations and so we had to make the decision to keep the pair together. If you prefer not to have to do all this extra work I would suggest the cock bird is going to be aggressive with any hen he is put with.
The hen does the incubation and raising of chicks solo
We have never had the problem nor know of anyone who has...(maybe its a mutation thing??)
It is a nice snippet of info that the females will raise ok Solo. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
The closest experience I have is a Normal male that has been a succesfull parent first with a normal female (she escaped) and then with a cinnamon female (she died). He is now paired with another young cinnamon female and she laid 7 eggs. Two hatched about two weeks ago.
She is sitting very tight (never seems to leave the box) and the male is feeding her fine but when I open the box to check on the chicks, she leaves the box. I have noticed that the male then aggresively persues her around the aviary (1.8m by.9m by .9m) and won't even let her go into the nest box. I have solved the problem by giving fresh food to them (he stops chasing her and eats instead), and not checking the box daily anymore.
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