Hi there, a couple of months ago, we discovered six dead birds in one night in our aviary. One was a budgie, and there were two finches, a bourke and a canary. All had had their heads or faces pecked or picked at and some had had their stomachs pulled at and had been bleeding. It was awful. We thought that we had had a rat invasion as we had been told that this can happen so we spent hours rat proofing the aviary and have had no further trouble until last night. This morning we discovered another dead budgie with the same wounds, face, eyes and stomach. The birds have been in the aviary together for just on a year and we have had no other trouble with any of them. Would this have been another rat or mouse or is it possible for another budgie to have done this. I only wonder because this morning one was sitting on top of the dead one pecking at it. It was disgusting. Can anyone help please? We are new to the bird thing, although have been doing it for a year, but never had any problems. Any advice anyone can give would be great.

by adding nestboxes to an aviary you force the birds to fight over boxes and get territorial. The " mother that killed her own chicks " didnt.......another female did. Thats what females do when they want a nestbox for themselves...they " clean it out" and that means remove or kill anything in it...be it eggs or chicks. Having nestboxes in an aviary also force breeds birds and forcebreeds birds that are considered too young. There should never be nestboxes anywhere underaged budgies are so that means any under 12 months.

If you want to breed your budgies, use the aviary as their fun place to be...no nestboxes. And remove each pair to a breeding cage...one male, one female and one nestbox. Safe and less stress and less deaths.

Read this http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index.php?showtopic=28294 and all the links to other colony breeding stories within that topic. You may decide to do things differently after reading.

As far as rats goes ....YES rats will kill and eat the birds. BUT generally they go for the canaries and finches first as they are easier to get roosting at night. If they get a budgie they will eat the whole head and most of the chest cavity down to lower abdomen and all you will find is lower extremities, feet and wings with a near empty body carcass. A rat attack usually looks like a feast has happened and its pretty bloody.

Will budgies kill their own ? YES over fights over possession of nestboxes. They dont kill and eat at the time of the fight, however every budgie in your aviary will; eat from a dead budgies carcass......they will eat the head, brain, face and peck at feet and chest. It wont look the same as a rat attack.

 

I think you need to rethink how you are doing things, for the better wellbeing of the birds.

Edited December 22, 201113 yr by **KAZ**

Great info KAZ. Will they kill for any other reason? (other than over nest boxes)

 

We had Charka (F) and Pretty Boy (M) together but Charka was pretty aggressive towards PB and would twist his tail and pull on it til it looked quite mangled. He didn't seem to mind too much but I think he must have secretly hated her because one day when I was changing the feed dish he darted out and flew as far as he could. We found him dead (probably from exhaustion) 2km away across the paddock at the neighbours house. Anyway, we joked that she was a ***** and must have been a pain to live with.

Charka seemed pretty happy after he was gone.. more content but then became lonely and withdrawn.. so jump forward a few months and we bought Charka a little pal for company. They were very happy together (although she did take to pulling and twisting his tail a lot) until one day about 6mths later we found the younger one dead. He was found at the bottom of the cage with basically the budgie-kill description you gave. We feel pretty sure she was to blame but not sure why. She now lives alone.

Great info KAZ. Will they kill for any other reason? (other than over nest boxes)

 

We had Charka (F) and Pretty Boy (M) together but Charka was pretty aggressive towards PB and would twist his tail and pull on it til it looked quite mangled. He didn't seem to mind too much but I think he must have secretly hated her because one day when I was changing the feed dish he darted out and flew as far as he could. We found him dead (probably from exhaustion) 2km away across the paddock at the neighbours house. Anyway, we joked that she was a ***** and must have been a pain to live with.

Charka seemed pretty happy after he was gone.. more content but then became lonely and withdrawn.. so jump forward a few months and we bought Charka a little pal for company. They were very happy together (although she did take to pulling and twisting his tail a lot) until one day about 6mths later we found the younger one dead. He was found at the bottom of the cage with basically the budgie-kill description you gave. We feel pretty sure she was to blame but not sure why. She now lives alone.

 

Hi. People should really try to avoid putting people emotions & feelings on to other species.

 

Charka aggression was for Pretty Boy to go away which he would have done if he had been

 

able to & did so at the first opportunity. One can't make birds like each other if they don't get on.

 

 

You say "He didn't seem to mind?" Being bullied is very stressful for any creature, even more

 

so when they can't fly away. He minded all right. "He secretly hated her." Not her personally

 

just her aggression, If you had split them up in adjacent cages when C first showed her

 

disapproval of PB's presents. They might have got along. Sorry if it sounds like I'm preaching

 

Yours B. J.

He was found at the bottom of the cage with basically the budgie-kill description you gave. We feel pretty sure she was to blame but not sure why. She now lives alone.

 

Kaz was describing how the budgies will eat the dead carcass AFTER it has died for some other reason,. It is still possible that he died from something else.

 

But if she is chronically aggressive to her cage mates, then maybe alone is best after all.

I just recently deleted the pictures I had of what some of my budgies did to one of mine BUT they are not the cause of his death But they did not help it any. He had a stroke or a heart attack And because he was Ill They were "removing him from their flock" Just like in the wild they do not want Sick birds with them because then the predators have a better chance of getting the flock.

 

Well to put it nicely They Kicked him while he was down - to say the least. I wasn't home I found the after math and he was still alive and I tried my very best to save him I'm sure the damage they caused didn't help him stay alive but it's truly not what killed him but when My daughter found him He was "Scalped" just like the Indian's did to people! it wasn't down to bone so I know if he would of survived we could of got that all healed up it may of never looked the same but at least he would of been healed up

 

I've even had a group attack a female while she was peaking out of the lid of her nest box. and they almost tore her cere all the way off BUT I caught that fight in time and she healed fine and lived another 3 years. and after about 2 weeks you couldn't tell she ever was attacked her cere was 100% normal.

 

I do not colony breed But the female who was peeking out of the nest box at the time where I lived I had 1 room for my birds I made a screen door for the door frame so I could leave the Main door open but no one could get out and they lived in it similar to an Aviary only it was inside They all had cages But who ever wasn't breeding lived as "Cages are optional" breeders were In cages until they were done but they all lived in the same room.

 

I've never known budgies to actually rip open other birds - not saying it doesn't happen, I'm sure it does just something people don't often talk about. or like you are thinking the main cause was something else. Which it could be It could be an array of Wild animals I'm not sure if you get Racoons where you live but a friend of mine who Breeds Cockatiels and Mouse birds (odd name for a bird lol) she lives in Florida and she has a huge problem with Racoons getting in her nests eating eggs and killing her birds,

 

Opossums would probably do it too Same with predator type birds like Hawks,

 

it is very possible something else killed your birds and your birds were just getting rid of them so nothing else attacks them. But then it could also be that your own birds did it to your other birds.

 

and I agree if One is very well known to be aggressive at all times its best for that one to live on their own. They can still be around the other birds just make it where she can't get to them, but at least let her hear/see them so she's not Completely alone. IF that makes sense.

I have a male budgie who's a bit homicidal. He used to rip the throats out of other male birds in the aviary (at first I thought it was a rat or something but I caught him at it one day). Admittedly this is very unusual and the only reason I could ever think of is that he didn't have the mate that he wanted and was eliminating the competition (because he never touched the females). Basically my point is not to rule out the idea that males can be responsible.

In my experience if all else fails its best to remove the problem female during breeding season as hormones make them more territorial at that time...

Hi. People should really try to avoid putting people emotions & feelings on to other species.

 

Charka aggression was for Pretty Boy to go away which he would have done if he had been

 

able to & did so at the first opportunity. One can't make birds like each other if they don't get on.

 

 

You say "He didn't seem to mind?" Being bullied is very stressful for any creature, even more

 

so when they can't fly away. He minded all right. "He secretly hated her." Not her personally

 

just her aggression, If you had split them up in adjacent cages when C first showed her

 

disapproval of PB's presents. They might have got along. Sorry if it sounds like I'm preaching

 

Yours B. J.

 

Yeah it does sound like you're preaching. Oh well. I guess I will just accept it with humbleness.

 

Sorry, I should have been more thorough with my description of their behaviour - when not having his tail pulled and twisted Pretty Boy would snuggle up to Charka and they would also play with their toys together for hours. PB would strut in front of C like he was showing off, and follow C around like he wanted a kiss. When she would stop for him, he would gently nuzzle her and bob his head up and down against her cheek. That was why I said that he didn't seem to mind, he seemed content (except for the tail pulling) but given what happened, I wonder now if he truly was.

 

If he had been scared of her and constantly staying away from her then I definitely would have split them permanently. I don't know for sure if he "secretly hated her", that was only my thought after he made his big escape. I am always careful with the doors, and in the blink of an eye he was out. It reminded me of a planned gaol escape... had he been watching for a weakness in my routine?

 

I apologise for "putting people emotions & feelings on to other species" but sometimes it is difficult for me to describe without using the analogies.

 

Kaz was describing how the budgies will eat the dead carcass AFTER it has died for some other reason,. It is still possible that he died from something else.

 

But if she is chronically aggressive to her cage mates, then maybe alone is best after all.

 

Thanks Finnie. Yep, you're right.. Charka is still alone and will remain a solitary bird.. She comes inside for a few hours every day (her cage is just out on the verandah) and to all appearances she seems quite happy with this arrangement. She still has little mini fits of aggression, but only towards me now. She is 95% well behaved, sits on my shoulder happily nibbling at my earrings or my hair, or wandering around on my desk playing with bits and pieces - but just every so often (that remaining 5%) she has a momentary hissy fit and bites hard, flaps her wings and screeches at me. As soon as it's passed (and it's over in seconds) she goes back to nuzzling and being a sweetie like nothing happened. I'm guessing it's just an attention thing, but I can put up with it as she's so good the rest of the time.