Our birds won't mate, but show signs they need to. Help!

[Zeytin]

Hello!

New here! This post is a bit long, but what else do we have to do these days, haha. I'll summarize up top and give more details below. I've been reading threads to search for answers to questions I've had. And here I have a question... and would appreciate any advice!

We have two lovebirds who both show hormones/mating signs, the female won't stop laying eggs, but they don't like each other!! We don't know if we should try something different or give up. Please help.

My partner Siyar and I got a female peachfaced olive lovebird in August 2018. Her name is Zeytin (it means "Olive" in Turkish). We are first-time parrot owners.

She started laying eggs about a year ago. She had one of those coconut-shell beds, and she laid her egg in there. After doing some research, we realized we shouldn't put any kind of bed like that in her cage in order to deter her from laying eggs, and we learned to remove her eggs, and also about proper nutrition for her. We learned about all of the dangers off laying eggs, and we tried our best to keep her safe.

After she did not stop the egg-laying behavior (she did it off and on, laying up to 4-5 eggs each time), we did some more research, and thought about getting her a mate. We weighed the pros and cons, but ultimately we wanted her to be happy and safe, and we thought that would be the best way. We tried to do the right thing because we really do love her.

So, around September of this year, Siyar went to get another lovebird. It was really hard to find a lovebird that wasn't a baby, but we ended up getting a lovebird that was probably a couple of months old. (We got him from a breeder, so it's harder to know exactly his age and species). He is yellow and blue His name is Falco.

We kept them in separate cages, but next to each other. Her cage had an egg box and his did not. When we tried to introduce them, they did not hit it off. We thought maybe he was still too young and we needed to wait and it would happen eventually. They are still in separate cages, but next to each other. They are let out of their cages at the same time and they fly around without problems until they get close to each other. That is when she becomes aggressive towards him and attacks him until he flys away.

We have gone back and forth trying to decide if we should mate them or not, because Zeytin has not stopped laying eggs. Every couple of weeks, she gets into "her season" again. We took away the egg box, we took away her coconut. She laid them on the bottom of her cage! Oh, and whenever she is in this "season" she displays her wingspan and makes some kind of clucking sound. She also is constantly shredding paper. I've had to hide all the books in the house, all the mail, all the paper. She will find anything she can! She shreds matchboxes or even boxes from Amazon! And it's super cute because Falco tries to imitate her, but he's not as good as shredding. He follows her around and copies her behavior, but she does not like him.


Falco has recently displayed signs of wanting to mate (or so I've read on these forums)! He regurgitates onto his favorite toy that he also humps/grinds... He clicks a lot, and paces back and forth on Siyar's shoulders as if he is trying to show off. He is definitely older now, so I wouldn't be surprised...

We now think that they will never mate... either because we did something wrong in introducing them, maybe they are different species (how do you even tell?), or maybe they just don't like each other.

We don't know if we should try something else, or maybe get two more birds (one for each of them) or just try to stop the egg-laying behavior (and we've read the forum on that, too).

Any advice?! Thank you so much!

 

[Owlet]

Can you show us a picture of them?

 

[fiddlejen]

From what I've read I think you're supposed to replace the eggs with wooden eggs in order to stop her laying, otherwise she overstresses her body to keep trying to replace the missing ones.

Or if you don't get some wooden ones, you remove her own as she lays, boil (to make them hard so they don't break), then cool for safety and return them to her. The idea is this she will stop Producing eggs and instead will brood them awhile (until she realizes they are not responding and loses interest).

I havent done this myself (yet!) so others may have some better advice about it.

(But, I have read about it attentively since I have 2 female birdies & want to be prepared.)

 

[Zeytin]

Here are two pictures of them.

I hadn't heard about replacing them before... maybe we should try that. Thanks!

 

[fiddlejen]

Aww look at them. He is so clearly smitten! I sure hope she comes around...

 

[Zeytin]

Aww look at them. He is so clearly smitten! I sure hope she comes around...

I know! He really is enamored with her and follows her around, tries to do what she does, and she just doesn't want him in her space. It's not even just when she's "in season" either. She is aggressive with us if we get too close when she's in season, too, but when she's, she's cute and cuddly. Just not with him! Even if they didn't mate, it would nice if they could be friends...

 

[Zeytin]

Can you show us a picture of them?

I included pictures!

 

[Inger]

Hello!

Birds, like humans, love who they love and we can't force them to choose the mate we want. So these two may never hit it off.

However, some food for thought. Laying fertilized eggs is no safer than laying unfertilized eggs; she's as likely to be egg-bound and it takes the same toll on her body either way. So mating may not be the best choice.

Additionally, what if they're not good parents? Are you prepared to hand raise chicks? You'll need to have a proper brooder, be familiar with hand feeding, have parrot formula. You'll want this all on hand before you need it, because the time it takes to scramble to put it all together may be the difference in life or death for the chicks. And if you don't feed them often enough, or too often, or with the formula too hot or too cold, you can be looking at another life or death situation.

Finally, since you aren't even sure what mutations they are (and they are different, you can tell by the coloring), breeding them is also not a good idea since you may be breeding genetic weaknesses into them and creating less healthy birds.

You might be better off to try to get the hormones down instead. You said you've read through the suggestions here, so I'll just touch on the usual suggestions again in case you might have missed any. Remove the nestboxes and anything that looks like it might even sort of create a nest. No snuggling in a blanket or hanging out in a pocket. Try to keep her away from all the shred-able things, because she's doing that to line her nest. No warm mushy foods. 12-14 hours of quiet, dark time for sleep (put her cage in a separate room while things are still going on, if necessary). Petting on the head area only - no cuddling, no petting of wings, chest, tummy, etc. She will see those as sexual advances. And if all else fails, depending on where you live in the world, you can contact an avian professional (in the US we prefer Certified Avian Vets but you may not have that option). They can sometimes give a hormone injection (lupron) that will stop the behavior.

Your babies are very cute.

 

[Zeytin]

Hello!

Birds, like humans, love who they love and we can't force them to choose the mate we want. So these two may never hit it off.

However, some food for thought. Laying fertilized eggs is no safer than laying unfertilized eggs; she's as likely to be egg-bound and it takes the same toll on her body either way. So mating may not be the best choice.

Additionally, what if they're not good parents? Are you prepared to hand raise chicks? You'll need to have a proper brooder, be familiar with hand feeding, have parrot formula. You'll want this all on hand before you need it, because the time it takes to scramble to put it all together may be the difference in life or death for the chicks. And if you don't feed them often enough, or too often, or with the formula too hot or too cold, you can be looking at another life or death situation.

Finally, since you aren't even sure what mutations they are (and they are different, you can tell by the coloring), breeding them is also not a good idea since you may be breeding genetic weaknesses into them and creating less healthy birds.

You might be better off to try to get the hormones down instead. You said you've read through the suggestions here, so I'll just touch on the usual suggestions again in case you might have missed any. Remove the nestboxes and anything that looks like it might even sort of create a nest. No snuggling in a blanket or hanging out in a pocket. Try to keep her away from all the shred-able things, because she's doing that to line her nest. No warm mushy foods. 12-14 hours of quiet, dark time for sleep (put her cage in a separate room while things are still going on, if necessary). Petting on the head area only - no cuddling, no petting of wings, chest, tummy, etc. She will see those as sexual advances. And if all else fails, depending on where you live in the world, you can contact an avian professional (in the US we prefer Certified Avian Vets but you may not have that option). They can sometimes give a hormone injection (lupron) that will stop the behavior.

Your babies are very cute.

Thank you, Inger!

That advice was really helpful. We agree that it's not a good decision to mate them. I think the only other thing we really need to do is move her cage in the evening. They are downstairs, so we don't go to bed when the sun comes down. We will start to move her at night and bring her back when we are awake so she isn't lonely. Do you think we should move both of them? Maybe her at first and then him later?

I hope that once her hormones go down, she will be less aggressive with him... it would be nice for them to at least be friends!

 

[Amsterdam]

Hello!

Birds, like humans, love who they love and we can't force them to choose the mate we want. So these two may never hit it off.

However, some food for thought. Laying fertilized eggs is no safer than laying unfertilized eggs; she's as likely to be egg-bound and it takes the same toll on her body either way. So mating may not be the best choice.

Additionally, what if they're not good parents? Are you prepared to hand raise chicks? You'll need to have a proper brooder, be familiar with hand feeding, have parrot formula. You'll want this all on hand before you need it, because the time it takes to scramble to put it all together may be the difference in life or death for the chicks. And if you don't feed them often enough, or too often, or with the formula too hot or too cold, you can be looking at another life or death situation.

Finally, since you aren't even sure what mutations they are (and they are different, you can tell by the coloring), breeding them is also not a good idea since you may be breeding genetic weaknesses into them and creating less healthy birds.

You might be better off to try to get the hormones down instead. You said you've read through the suggestions here, so I'll just touch on the usual suggestions again in case you might have missed any. Remove the nestboxes and anything that looks like it might even sort of create a nest. No snuggling in a blanket or hanging out in a pocket. Try to keep her away from all the shred-able things, because she's doing that to line her nest. No warm mushy foods. 12-14 hours of quiet, dark time for sleep (put her cage in a separate room while things are still going on, if necessary). Petting on the head area only - no cuddling, no petting of wings, chest, tummy, etc. She will see those as sexual advances. And if all else fails, depending on where you live in the world, you can contact an avian professional (in the US we prefer Certified Avian Vets but you may not have that option). They can sometimes give a hormone injection (lupron) that will stop the behavior.

Your babies are very cute.

Thank you, Inger!

That advice was really helpful. We agree that it's not a good decision to mate them. I think the only other thing we really need to do is move her cage in the evening. They are downstairs, so we don't go to bed when the sun comes down. We will start to move her at night and bring her back when we are awake so she isn't lonely. Do you think we should move both of them? Maybe her at first and then him later?

I hope that once her hormones go down, she will be less aggressive with him... it would be nice for them to at least be friends!

hello there zeytin! nice to see ppl from turkey here also please keep in notice that we cannot stop hormonal behaviour let us know how it works

 

[Zeytin]

Thanks, Amsterdam! Tessekur ederim