WhiskeyNebula
New member
Hi there,
first post after my introduction and I have a question for anyone that knows a lot more about lovebirds than I do (which will be a lot of you haha).
I got my first lovebird - Nebula - in June last year. We went with only one as a start, in order to see how my flatmates get along with a bird. I have been working from home (pandemmy is whammy) anyway and I had time to take care of her and spend time with her all day. We still had to feed her babyfood for a while and she grew super tame and lovable and she is basically completely linked with us now.
Then in November we decided that a second bird is necessary. It´s not good for Nebula to never have any other of her kind. Either way, we got Whiskey and the same procedure. We still had to feed her babyfood and she grew just as tame.
Here´s the thing now that makes me kinda sad:
At first, Nebula was intrigued by the new baby but as time grew she became more irritated. There were never any true bites or her going for her leg or anything, so I was assuming it´s just a dominance thing.
However, they´ve known each other 4 months now and I still have to keep them in separated cages. Most of the day, when they´re out - it´s fine. Whiskey follows Nebula everywhere (seriously, everywhere) and they get along. But then there´s moments where they just fight and start going for each other´s leg and not stopping unless I chime in.
These moments are clearly when it comes to things that they don´t want to share. Like being on us or their favourite climbing bag (my former work-bag now...) and so forth.
I never had the chance to do the "cage-trick" where I leave one of them in the cage and let the other safely approach but that was mostly because they never really were in a cage unless for food, water and sleeping. I basically built a giant plaground in and around the 2 cages that they can play around with. Thing is, I did "try" but Nebula just ignores her.
Here´s my question:
What can I do to make them get along?
Few more notes to help the situation:
- They´ve never made each other bleed or hurt each other (yet). It´s just that - especially Nebula - goes for the other´s legs which is definitely not a good fight thing to do
- I tried treats to make them sympathise and it works. They can eat in peace and even share peanuts without going at each other. But as soon as it comes to us, it´s all over again with the truce
- They don´t seem to communicate with each other a lot. They´re current cage set-up has them right next to each other. I decided to leave them in the cage for longer times (slowly getting there) and basically "forcing" them to interact with each other as the only alternative is nothing which can´t be what they want. BUT, I only hear them both tweet for us every now and then (the loud "Attention" scream they do) but never just babble with each other.
Whiskey does like her and I even had a situation where she desperately wanted to preen Nebula. But Nebula didn´t see it coming and thought it was an attack and immediately retalitated. It was really sad.
If anyone has had similar situations, please help me out! Whatever I can do to make them like each other, I will do what I can!
Thank you for any help! If you need any more info, please do let me know!
Best,
Martin
first post after my introduction and I have a question for anyone that knows a lot more about lovebirds than I do (which will be a lot of you haha).
I got my first lovebird - Nebula - in June last year. We went with only one as a start, in order to see how my flatmates get along with a bird. I have been working from home (pandemmy is whammy) anyway and I had time to take care of her and spend time with her all day. We still had to feed her babyfood for a while and she grew super tame and lovable and she is basically completely linked with us now.
Then in November we decided that a second bird is necessary. It´s not good for Nebula to never have any other of her kind. Either way, we got Whiskey and the same procedure. We still had to feed her babyfood and she grew just as tame.
Here´s the thing now that makes me kinda sad:
At first, Nebula was intrigued by the new baby but as time grew she became more irritated. There were never any true bites or her going for her leg or anything, so I was assuming it´s just a dominance thing.
However, they´ve known each other 4 months now and I still have to keep them in separated cages. Most of the day, when they´re out - it´s fine. Whiskey follows Nebula everywhere (seriously, everywhere) and they get along. But then there´s moments where they just fight and start going for each other´s leg and not stopping unless I chime in.
These moments are clearly when it comes to things that they don´t want to share. Like being on us or their favourite climbing bag (my former work-bag now...) and so forth.
I never had the chance to do the "cage-trick" where I leave one of them in the cage and let the other safely approach but that was mostly because they never really were in a cage unless for food, water and sleeping. I basically built a giant plaground in and around the 2 cages that they can play around with. Thing is, I did "try" but Nebula just ignores her.
Here´s my question:
What can I do to make them get along?
Few more notes to help the situation:
- They´ve never made each other bleed or hurt each other (yet). It´s just that - especially Nebula - goes for the other´s legs which is definitely not a good fight thing to do
- I tried treats to make them sympathise and it works. They can eat in peace and even share peanuts without going at each other. But as soon as it comes to us, it´s all over again with the truce
- They don´t seem to communicate with each other a lot. They´re current cage set-up has them right next to each other. I decided to leave them in the cage for longer times (slowly getting there) and basically "forcing" them to interact with each other as the only alternative is nothing which can´t be what they want. BUT, I only hear them both tweet for us every now and then (the loud "Attention" scream they do) but never just babble with each other.
Whiskey does like her and I even had a situation where she desperately wanted to preen Nebula. But Nebula didn´t see it coming and thought it was an attack and immediately retalitated. It was really sad.
If anyone has had similar situations, please help me out! Whatever I can do to make them like each other, I will do what I can!
Thank you for any help! If you need any more info, please do let me know!
Best,
Martin