Hey all, I am really confused right now about my budgies. They have never ever faught before, but now the male is acting really aggressive. He will strike at my female really quick, and she will scoot away, but then he will do it a couple more times until she moves off that perch. Also if the female decides to go get something to eat, after awhile the male will come down and my female automatically jumps away to a perch or to the water cup. What do you think can be the cause of this happening so suddendly? I have never seen them fight before.

Please help, thank you

Edited October 11, 200618 yr by hops523

Hey, mine are doing the same thing. I hope you get an answer soon. I'd like to know what's going on.

Shell

That sounds opposite of what usually happens, as the female is the aggressive bird in a pair. Fighting for perching spots and over food is a hen behavior. Most hens do not willingly give up anything without a squabble, especially not to the male of the species. It is possible you are confused about the gender of one or both birds. If you are sure of the sexes of your birds, and know the male is the aggressor, I would start by adding food cups to the cage, and making sure there is more than one high perch for them to choose from. Then monitor your hen, as she may be ill and the male may be taking advantage of that situation. On second thought, if the hen is that passive I would seperate them now and monitor her behavior over the next day or so for illness. Better safe than sorry. Hopefully she is not sick.

Edited September 24, 200618 yr by Rainbow

Im almost 100% positive that the male is the aggressive one. I can put up pics of their ceres if you like. It is kind of a weird relationship. I also thought that the male was suppose to feed the female unless the female was sick. But from day one my female has fed my male. My male will do it everyone in awhile but for the most part it is the female. So I do not think she is sick or anything because she still feeds him. I dont know, this is realaly strange

Are the birds in your sig the ones in question? If so, I can't see the cere of the bird on the right, but the bird on the left looks male. Can you still post some pics up of the ceres? It's best if you can get pictures without using the flash, in a brightly lit room.

yes those are the birds i am talking about. The one on the left is a female i am almost positive. It does look like she is male in that picture, but if you saw her in person she looks female,and the other male. here is a picture of her awhile ago

My male Budgies did this when I first introduced them. Took them about a week to get over it.

my budgies have been together for a few months now

Hi!

I second the vote on putting another seed cup in. Watch them carefully, that the squabbles are not too serious, and make sure they always have plenty of food and water. If it doesn't stop, you may have to separate them. In our experience, it was always the female that was the boss! We had a female beat up a male bloody!

Cheers, Kelsey

How old are they? Is it possible your male is being annoying to your hen with unwanted "attentions" and she is merely trying to get away? Normally the hen will hack away at the male to get him to stop, but some males just don't get it... If he has been after her for 2 hours before you come into the room, what you are seeing may not be what is really happening. Just something to think about. What is the dimensions of their cage? Do you have a spare cage in case you need to seperate them for a bit?

Yeah who knows what they could be doing while I am away. In the last few days not much fighting has been going on. The only thing I saw that was close to fighting was my female pecking at my male one time, the cage is about 20 inches long, 13 inches wide and 32 inches high. Yes I have some spare cages if things get out of hand.

This fighting thing is occurring again, its been a couple weeks since they have gone at it. I am really confused. Now the female is becomng more involved in it though, instead of letting the male boss her around. But I really do not know what to do. I thought they had a bond. They used to preen eachother and feed eachother more often, but again in the last couple of days they havent. I took them out and changed up the cage a little bit, but it didnt work. I wanted to breed these two when they were older, but it almost seems they are losing their bond. What should I do?

Well I am almost positive now that I have a male and female, or at least a female. My female has a light cere and if you look close you can tell that it is turning brown around the nostrils. But yesterday it was strange, for about 3 minutes they were preening and feeding eachother, then about 5 mintues later they started to fight again. Can anyone help me with this odd relationship?

It doesn't sound like an odd relationship to me. Especially if the female is the one who is becoming more aggressive. If the female is becoming remotely interested in starting a family, there isn't much in the beginning that the male can do right, lol. If he preens her the wrong way, she will hack at him. If he doesn't preen her when she wants it, she will hack at him. If he doesn't sing to her in the right way, she will hack at him. LOL he can't win in the beginning. :dbb1: This phase can last a while. Eventually, the male will really start his wooing, despite the fact that to all outward appearances he is just an incompetent pest. Then all the singing, head bobbing, and feeding will begin in earnest. If they are not old enough you would need to seperate them at this point. But in the beginning, the above behavior will be shown by pairs (no matter what sex), you can tell by how receptive one of the birds is (or is not) to help you decide if you have two males or a true pair. More pictures would be nice. :bluebudgie:

Really I didnt know that. Is it normal for the male to hack back at her? Because sometimes he is the one starting the contraversies. Most of the time the female does all the preening and feeding. Usually how long does this stage take, a fews months? I will try to get some good pics of their ceres, but I usually never can haha

thank you

I'm wondering if you have the genders mixed up for your birds. The female will not normally do the feeding or preening. The male will do all the feeding, and only occassionally will the female participate in allopreening. The usual times a female will do the regurgitating is if 1-she is feeding babies, 2-she is introduced to a very young budgie that still begs for food. I have heard she will feed a sick male, but don't have any experience in that area. When Rainbow was sick none of the hens ever fed him. Usually they will try to "off" any really sick birds in the flock and keep them away from food because sick birds are an open invitation to predators.

 

I have 4 females right now. They will only occassionally preen each other's pin feathers and I have never seen them regurgitate to each other. If you can get some more pictures that would help us determine the sex of your birds.

here are some, around the females nostrils it is turning a brownish color but you cant really tell in the picture. And the male is from a side view but I think that you can still see the cere pretty well.

 

female:

 

male:

Edited October 15, 200618 yr by hops523

How old are they? If one of them is getting a brown cere, then it would be female, but in the last group of pictures the head looks so male. And going by the shape of the cere I would have said male too...but brown means girl. Is she under 6 months old?

no she is over 6 months. So is the male I think he looks young than 6 months because he kept his "baby stripes" and he is recessive. So you think that the last one is male? Also another weird thing was yesterday right after I posted on here, the male just went crazy and started to preen and feed my female. I dont know what got into him.

Edited October 16, 200618 yr by hops523

That second picture is male. As long as the other bird allows him to feed her, they are forming a bond. I don't think a female will accept food from a bird they don't like. What type of behavior is normal for them when out of the cage? Do they follow each other around and stick like glue, or do they go their own way?

When I let them out in an open area most of the time they will stay together, but the female can fly and the male cant because he had his wings clipped, so most of the time yes they will stay together. And if they are in more of an enclosed area like a smaller room then they will stay right with eachother.

Do they fight outside of the cage?

No not that I have noticed.

You might consider a larger cage. It's possible they don't have enough room. The height is fine, but the width and length are short for the height of the cage. Longer cages rather than taller ones are usually best, unless the cage is huge to begin with. If one of your birds is female, she will need more "personal space" LOL than the male will. Plus since they are both under a year old, they will be going through some physical and personality changes as a normal part of maturing. Sometimes they just will not like to be in such close proximity. A wider cage would help that. Or you can temporarily seperate them if the fighting escalates, because I know you don't want either of them to hurt the other.

Yes I was planning on getting a bigger cage as soon as I could, but I didnt even think of that (Laughing out loud). I will have to start looking. I went to the store a couple days ago, but most of them were either tall like mine, or just as long as they are tall.