Budgies Becoming More And More Aggressive

[Velanu 0]

Hi 

So I recently got a pair of budgies (siblings, one male and one female, the male being 4 days older than the female). Right now they are about 3 months old, I picked them up from a breeder about 1.5 months ago (meaning I’ve had them myself for 1.5 months). 

 

At first everything was fine they were in the same cage when they were with the breeder so I didn’t feel the need to put them in separate cages when I took them home, meaning I just put them in the same one. Everything worked great for the first maybe 3 weeks, they got along very well and became used to my hand pretty fast. But by the fourth week I’ve had them (so they would be about 2 months) they became somewhat aggressive, they would start fighting over food, perches, toys and so on. It would actually be my male starting a majority of the fight being somewhat food aggressive and wanting to play alone (this however doesn’t mean my female didn’t start a few) these fight would happen maybe 5-10 times a day and would only last for a couple of seconds. My female would go close to the food bowl, my male would open his beak showing “I’ll bite you if you come close”, attempt to bite her if she came close or just continue eating if the flew away. Now I assumed this would happen at one point or another so I got a second food station and put in more similar toys to make sure they didn’t need to fight over one specific toy or food. But they continued to fight, they had recognized that there was another food station and more toys yet they continued to fight over the same ones (I’d seen them eat from the new bowl and play with the new toys). I tried to make sure the new toys and food station was placed where they would feel safe to eat and play. But they still wanted to eat together so I just let it be for a while thinking “well if it gets too bad they at least know they can eat / play somewhere else”.

 

As of right now my female has become more aggressive (which is more common if I’m correct, since they’re more territorial aso). She’s often the one starting fight, protecting the food bowl, claiming all the toys as her and dragging him of perches. The fights have become more common happening well over 20 times a day and as of right now and I’m honestly just unsure of what to do. Since they are 3 months right now they should be more hormonal (which can cause more aggression if I understood everything correct) and since it’s mating season for budgies where I live I guess it’s even more hormones and I’m unsure if this is all just a bunch for hormones or something more serious. As of right now I personally want to get a second cage and separate them but my mom keeps insisting “that it’s all fine, it’s just hormones” and yeah to a certain degree. I’ve started to notice my male trying to mate with the female and I’m okay if she tries to bite him if he gets to close to her because of it. But when she out of nowhere just drags him of a perch well I’m not so fine with it anymore. 

 

Just this morning they were inside their cage and I stood just outside talking to them a bit with the male standing the closest to me and my female standing maybe like 5 cm behind him. I talked to them both trying to give them the same amount of attention when my female just lunged, jumps on him, bites his neck and drags him down to the floor. I back away from the cage thinking “Why, I was giving you both attention, he wasn’t trying to mate with you, he was focused on me, why did you feel the need to do this?” and I honestly don’t know. I asked my mom about this and she laughed it off saying “oh well it’s hormonal, it’s normal, look they like each other”. Now they do sometimes play together, eat together and preen together (as mentioned earlier) but it’s less common while the fights are beginning to become more common. 

 

Now the second major problem I have with this is training, they are both somewhat tame, they’ll sometimes step up on my finger if I don’t have any food but will always do it if I have some. Training worked great in the beginning as I would make one of them step up while the other one watched and then take the one that watched and make him / her step up, then put them both on the perch and repeat. Now I mixed between taking the male or female first making sure that they went first the same amount of times. But when they became more aggressive the one I picked up first would always try to drag the other one of my hand. As of right now I’m scared of picking up either one of them since I’m afraid the other one might get jealous, jump up, drag the other one off making them associate my hand with fights of danger and rewarding the aggressive one with millet (since I train them with millet). Now I always try to remove the millet if one of them is aggressive (not rewarding that behavior) but then I don’t reward them for stepping up on my hand making them not learn anything or understand what I want them to do. 

 

Now my question is if I should train them separately, put one in the cage and train the other one, and then take the one in the cage out, train that one while the other one is waiting in the cage? I’m honestly unsure if this would work or just make them jealous because I’m giving the other one attention. I thought about  just putting a cloth over the cage so they can’t see the other one while they’re training but I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what to do about anything, I’ve come to the point where I can’t focus on anything because I’m so worried about them. My mom is kind of done with this whole situation threatening that she’ll “sell the budgies if they keep distracting me as much as they do at the moment” and I’m honestly desperate.