Male/female behavior

[mryl]

I have two birds about 5-6 months old. One will get mad and peck at
me and hit me with his wing, I assumed he was the male. The other is
a little younger, doesn't hit or peck but just recently started
getting a little bossy, when other bird goes to eat "it" swoops down
to push other away then starts "dancing" I guess in a circle and
cooing. Is this male behavior? Any ideas on what they are? I was
hoping for eggs pretty soon.

[TAWhatley]

I have seen both males and females do the wing slapping routine. The "dancing" is most likely a male doing his bow and coo thing. Make sure the "dancing" bird is not keeping the other one from food and water.

Terry Whatley

[bigbird]

These are typical behaviors of cocks however I have been fooled so many times that I now have only one rule that is foolproof: If the bird lays an egg, you have a hen.
Regards,
Carl

[mryl]

Terry,
Will one not let the other near food even after they have eaten?

[TAWhatley]

Hi again,

I cautioned about the food and water because I have seen this happen with a couple of groups of my pigeons as well as my female lovebirds.

Being new to lovebirds, I had three females and one male (all rescues), and decided to put the three females together in a huge cage with plenty of food and water containers. Two of the females "ganged" up on the third one and very nearly starved her to death before I noticed them keeping her from the food and water. I later learned that female lovebirds are notorious for this type of behavior.

In the case of the pigeons, I have Peaches, Paintchips, and Haiku who came in as a group. Peaches and Paintchips are siblings and Haiku was an older squab that was rescued with P&P. All three seemed to be doing fine, getting along, and all of a sudden Haiku and Painchips started pecking and wing slapping at Peaches to keep her from the food and water. The same thing happend with Buttons, Bingo, and Blooper. These are like aged squabs and totally unrelated. They also got along well until suddenly Buttons fell victim to Blooper and Bingo and had to be separated. I suspect this is due to reaching sexual maturity and deciding that two's company and three's a crowd.

It didn't seem to be a matter of "pecking" order where the dominant birds were willing to share after having their fill. They did not allow the "outsider" to get near the food and water at all.

At any rate, do be on the look out for any such problems. If I had not noticed what was really going on, I would have ended up with dead birds.

Terry Whatley


[This message has been edited by TAWhatley (edited January 30, 2002).]

[mryl]

I watched today from the window when I fed them and there was a lot of feather flapping, the bully was protecting his food. I went in and put the other bird on the ground and he started eating right away. I only have two birds, getting a 3rd this weekend, any sugesstions?
Would two feeders help? I'm using milk gallons now.

[TAWhatley]

Hi again,

Well, if it were me, I would probably put out another feeder just to be sure. As I noted in previous posts I have had three pigeons get along and share nicely until all of a sudden there was one outsider who got left out. If you are watching them, I am sure you will be able to tell if another feeder is needed. Please let us know how this saga continues. It is very interesting to me to hear different stories of pigeon behavior.

Terry Whatley

[robo squab]

hi
I an gong to say that BigBirds evaluation was most suited for my cases obviously it wont help you however this dancing cooing and wing flapping thing I have seen all the time to tell you the truth there is probably 10 11 of these conflicts happening every day to help you I need to Know the age of the pigeon and other than dancing and cooing does it do anything else how many are there bullying and is it 1 that is bieng bullied specifiacally or just anyone who dares to come to it's beloved feeder if it is only 1 or 2 I would like to know the ages of at least one of them to give you more accurate behavioral information but for now listen to the bird doing the dancing and bullying and if the voice is a little weak and squeaky you probably just have an aggressive female but if it has a deep noise with almost like bubbles popping in the background you are probably dealing with a male at any rate I will be waiting for your more detailed response to give you a better evaluation
Thank you RoboSquab
P.S. the ages do not have to be extremely specific just and estimation but hopefully close to the actual age as possibe without going through much trouble