Excessively mating male

[Mattjs33]

Hello,

We have two budgies who have been mating for a while. Perry has never laid any eggs in the past. I've been told that there is a mating period in the spring and another one in the fall. Here it is December, and Danny will not leave Perry alone. Perry has not been feeling well lately, and is spending a lot of time sleeping. Danny has actually tried mounting her while she had her head tucked back trying to sleep. He will get on top of her even without the usual protocol, and her tail isn't even up. Tonight at least he did it the right way and she put her tail up. So he does his thing. Half an hour later, there he is on top of her again.

Shouldn't he be over it this time of year, with the shorter days? Why doesn't he get that she doesn't want to? We have not provided any nesting materials, and there are two other budgies in the cage. He's not being too nice to the other male either.

The other problem of course is that Perry has not been feeling well. We took her to the vet, he said she had a bit of inflammation, maybe due to an improperly dropped egg from the ovary. We medicated her for two weeks, as instructed, had two follow up visits, he said the swelling was down, but she still is not herself. She sleeps almost all the time. When I uncover them, she is pressed up hard against her mate Danny, pushing him into the wall of the cage. Then she will regurgitate, quite exaggerated. But she eats normally it seems. I suppose if I was a female and I was being mated constantly I wouldn't feel that great either.

[maxollie]

Your male budgie is acting normally. I had a pair of budgies several years ago and my male acted the same way. Personally, I think that all fid males have this behavior to some extent. It is just a natural instinct for them to breed. The other male is most probably an annoyance to Danny, because he has mating on his mind and Perry definitely is the one he prefers to be with. Budgies can fight with each other over a female. I've had that experience in the past. I was gone for a period of time one afternoon and did not get back home to early evening. At the time I had what I thought was four males in one cage. It was Christmas time. I was not aware I had any females at all because I was sure they were all male. (so I thought). When I got home, the 3 males had been in a fight and one of them had a broken toe. They all were fighting over the female. So I immediately removed the female from the cage and placed her in another cage.

As to your little hen, Perry, I am of the opinion that you should take her out of the cage and put her in a cage by herself for a period of time, until she is healthy and well and your Vet would agree she can return to the other birds that are currently in the cage. As always, these are just my own opinions and you as the caregiver will need to do what you feel is best for your budgies. I do hope my information will be of help to you.

[Marrie]

Have you discussed this with your vet? I would be worried that the mating, with an already existing egg problem, would simply cause another problem before her body has recovered. As for the rivalry between males I know the breeders on here always caution against housing a breeding pair (which, apparently your budgie thinks his pair is no matter what you think) with any other birds because they have been known to kill each other in rivalry over territory/their mate.

[Kerry C]

I agree, you need to take her out of this cage and put her by herself so she can recover without harrasment from her mate. I would provide a heat source as well. Put a low watt bulb (like a 25 watt) in a lamp, take the shade off and put that next to the cage. When she's cold she can get closer to the bulb for heat, but it wont be overly bright for her.

[Mattjs33]

Thanks for the replies. We had Perry separate for a few days during the medication period, it was torture. She would not eat or do anything, she missed him so much. And Danny was just mental. Having them in the same room was worse. They spent all day trying to get to the other! So we just retrieved her from the big cage every time. Hated stressing everybody for that, but Danny and Perry were happier. So I guess we can try separating her again, see what happens. She seems a bit more chipper today.

We have been turning out the lights earlier, to try to keep him down (so to speak, sorry). He's mates so much I think because he's so comically bad at it that I'm not sure he finishes, if you know what I mean! He constantly slips off. Anyway he usually leaves Charlie alone, until he wants some action. Charlie has taken to Janis though, so he leaves Danny and Perry alone for the most part. Has anyone ever had two mating pairs in one cage? Instinct tells me this is a bad idea. Danny is clearly the alpha male, I'm not sure he'll ever let Charlie get to it.

We have a fifth, Jimi, who is in a separate cage now because he did not seem to understand that Perry belonged to Danny. He would harrass Perry all the time, and Danny did not like it one bit. Eventually there was a fight of such magnitude that I had to reach in the cage and physically separate them by hand! So he will never be able to be back in there again.

Up until Jimi we never had these issues. At one point we had eight; three have passed. The other male Storm and Danny were buds though, and Storm never bothered him. It's almost like now that the cage is less crowded Danny has more opportunities, so now he's become a bit full of himself. Am I on to something here, or not?

[maxollie]

When I had the incident with my 4 males and one female in the cage, that I spoke about in a post here, it wasn't that these budgies were new to each other at all. The "trouble" started unexpectedly, but as I remember, I originally had two cages with two in each cage. Then I brought home Buttercup (the female) in April of that year. I made a move from a house to an apartment and since I didn't have as much room, I decided to put all of the budgies in one cage. I made the move in August, and in December, which is about the time some budgies start mating my trouble began.

After I put Niki and Buttercup in the same cage, it was hillarious to watch them. Because like your Danny, Niki was non-stop with Buttercup, and being "new" at it, he wasn't too good at it either, although, being a male, he "thought" he was. He was constantly "working" it, and within a very short period of time Buttercup laid her first egg from her "swing" of all places and of course it landed on the cage floor and broke. Like all female fids, if they don't complete the cycle of laying the clutch of eggs, and setting on them, they will just keep laying eggs over and over again until they get to complete the entire process which is having a nest box, letting the hen lay her eggs in the box, and then watching and waiting for the eggs to hatch. I decided after a short period of time to get a nest box. I put it in the cage, and almost immediately Buttercup began laying her clutch of eggs. I never bothered the nest box, at all for the entire 21 days of her setting on them. I didn't know how many were in the box. Niki the male never entered the nest box while she was sitting on them. She would come out of the nest box on occasion to eat and drink water and then back into the box she would go. The night the first egg hatched, Niki the male was perched on his swing, and all of a sudden he flew off that swing and jumped into the nest box. I went to the cage and listened closely, and sure enough, I could hear that little baby chick peeping. From then on it was Niki, the male, who fed those babies perfectly, and I ended up with 4 of the cutest little budgies you could ever imagine. I named them Limon and Lemon (they were yellow like the male), and Mango and Tango (they were green with grey wings like the female). I placed them in a separate cage, and almost immediately Niki and Buttercup began their mating ritual all over again. I have found that it is a very natural instinct for birds to be mating all of the time.

[Mattjs33]

This is a sweet story. We have never considered a nest box, because we just don't think we're up to it. We're relatively new to this, and not home enough to really tend to the nest box like we've read that you need to. This is the first time I've ever read someone just letting nature do the work and it all worked out. Ours are two beautiful birds, I can only imagine having offspring of your own birds!

[Mattjs33]

Well, last night we separated Perry from the others to give her a break from Danny so that she could hopefully start to feel better. This was the advice you had given me here, as well as the opinion of my vet. We put the cage right up next to the big cage so they could all see each other, and she could still be by Danny. We went out for some dinner and drinks and when we returned Perry was not in her cage! She had escaped, and after about 5 minutes of searching we found her and put her back in her little cage. We had been gone about 3 hours, so I don't know how long she had been out, but I noticed when I scooped her up that her energy was not very high.

So this morning when we uncovered everybody, Perry was dead.

We know she had not been feeling well for a while now, but she did seem like she was getting at least a little better. Could the anxiety of being separated been so great that she just gave up? She had not been sleeping all pushed up against Danny in about five days, and she continued to eat. But she also would regurgitate a lot too. So I'm thinking that something was wrong with her digestive system. And still Danny would constantly try to mate with her, whether she wanted to or not.

I feel like separating them was the right thing to do, given her health, but I almost wonder if Danny's constant prodding was keeping Perry going. She may have died anyway, I don't know. I guess at least this way she didn't die where Danny would see her as well. I worry about him now, he was so attached to her. Will he take it out on his other cage mates?

[Marrie]

It's possible when she escaped she hurt herself even more, since birds don't fly well when they are sick and a fall or bumping into something can hurt them badly. If you want to know for sure what happened, the vet can do a necropsy. It can also help with mourning if the other bird gets to see the body, they understand what happened more then, instead of thinking their mate just disappeared.

I'm sorry for your loss and it sounds like she had been sick a while - birds hide it well, so when they act sick they are usually pretty far gone already, so don't give in to "what ifs", you did what you could for her. Give him some time, he will miss her, but he will heal.

[Mattjs33]

It can also help with mourning if the other bird gets to see the body, they understand what happened more then, instead of thinking their mate just disappeared.

I didn't think of it that way, I figured he would be more sad to see her dead. Do you think I should let him see her now, even though she has been gone so long?

I think you are correct, I think she just wore herself out being out of the cage for so long. She was never a strong flyer. When I did finally retrieve her there was not much resistance.

[Mattjs33]

Well, it just keeps getting more complicated... We had to separate Danny from the others now. Seems he was going after Janis, even though Janis and Charlie have attempted mating at least once that I know of. Aren't budgies supposed to mate for life? Shouldn't Danny have had at least a few days mourning? He would go after Charlie, trying to keep him away from Janis. Mind you, Janis has never shown any interest in Danny. Danny now wanted to pick fights with Charlie. Charlie's done nothing.

I swear, looking back with perfect hindsight, we should have separated Danny and Perry the minute we realized they were a mating pair. Ever since then has been nothing but drama, fights, flirtations, and jealousy. Now we have four birds left, in three cages, when originally we had seven in one. It's almost as if things were better the more we had. There was no room or time for fights or mating. What's the most budgies that can get along in a flight cage of about 30 x 30? Should we go get some more, to try to restore some order? Maybe we should get all females...

Of course, Danny hates being separated, and he's the alpha male. And the cage we have for him is way too small; we will need a bigger one. He's spending all of his time trying to escape. Do you think he will be able to go back in the big cage eventually?

[Marrie]

Birds do mate for life, usually, but to them life is over once it's over. I am sure he still misses her, but his hormones are probably still out of control, so while he misses her... I guess he realizes she isn't coming back so wants a new mate for his er, "needs". I wonder if maybe you could redirect his attentions to a "rubby toy", like you can do with a solo bird? At least for now.

I have little advice to give as for how to get them integrated together, I know breeders say not to keep mating pairs together in the same cage, but beyond that I have little knowledge of breeding pairs. Maybe Kerry C will be able to help when they stop back by. I would be worried that if you get a new female for Danny though that his excessive mating would cause another egg issue in his new girl. We had one member who had a similar issue in a tiel, you could look through those posts and see if any of the advice there may help - it was Skip's posts about her tiel Sassy (though, in the end the advice didn't help her, Danny may respond better to it).

Hope the little guy settles down for you soon, poor thing.

[maxollie]

Matt, I'm very sorry to hear that Perry died. I know how heart wrenching it is to lose one of your precious little birds, no matter what breed they might be. I do agree that perhaps since Perry was having health issues being out and flying around, was very stressful and taxing on her little body.

Whenever I'm out of my home for shopping or running errands I use a small piece of string to tie the cage doors to the bar right next to the door so that my birds cannot escape while I'm gone. I don't use a very large piece of string because they could get hung up in it. I just use enough so that it secures the doors and they can't get out. My 4 tiels I spoke about in my prior post all were out flying all over one time when I woke up of a morning. I really don't know how they managed to get out, but tiels are very intelligent birds for sure. It seemed to me they somehow pulled up one of the small cage doors where the seed/water cups sit and got out that way. They didn't get out the big door because it would have still been open. This was a lesson that taught me to always tie the doors to prevent escape.

I hope your crisis will soon be over with all of your little budgies. This definitely is the time of the year for this behavior. And it seems that Danny is definitely in the "throws" of manhood!!

Fly High Sweet Perry!! Over the Rainbow Bridge!! You are happy and at peace now, and one day I know for sure you and Matt will be united on your way to heaven!

Again, Matt . . . I'm so sorry for the problems you are having. Rest in Peace, Perry!

[Mattjs33]

Thank you for the kind words. She will be missed.