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I have two spotted neck turtle doves named Spitfire (girl) and Hurricane (boy).
About 6 months ago, Hurricane began freaking out over disturbances during the night and taking off into the aviary roof and wire. Both my birds are in an outdoor aviary in a big backyard and originally I believed that I had eliminated the reason for why this was occurring, as this tendency eventually stopped. Now that we've moved house to a different neighbourhood, Hurricane has had two more episodes of this in the past 2 months since living here. The first was just 2 nights ago, the latest incident was tonight. On all the other occassions it only happened in the pitch black night, between midnight and sunrise, but it is only 7.30pm and Hurricane has been spooked to the point of going into the aviary walls again. my other bird, Spitfire, barely even cares or sometimes gets spooked by his behaviour, but manages to get herself onto a perch and avoid hitting anything.
I'm so worried about Hurricane, nearly everytime this happens I take him inside and always inspect him for wounds and I'm hurting myself knowing that he probably is continuously giving himself a concussion and that must be so painful. I want the best for both of them, and want to figure out how to stop this entirely, but it seems to occur more frequently now, with less and less provocation.
The second to last time this happened (just 2 nights ago) he ended up with an obvious gash on the top of his head. I am so tempted to keep him as an inside bird, but he loves the outdoors and Spitfire and him are becoming such good friends.
My current plan is to just bring him in at night time before it even gets dark, every night for a few nights to a week, and let him into the aviary again in the morning so he can enjoy the sun with Spittie. As time goes on I will leave him outside later and later, in his small cage within the aviary, so he can get used to the sounds, smells and sights that might occur during the night without being in the big aviary and therefore without being able to gather enough speed to really injure himself if he flies into something.
I really want to train him to accept his aviary and the environment around it at night, has anyone else had this experience?
Spitfire and Hurricane are both hand reared doves who fell to the ground as babies, but unrelated. Spitfire is very sturdy and bossy and confident in nature yet Hurricane is very sensitive, slow, quiet, affectionate and sweet. I get the feeling this may just be his personality where he gets quite worried over little things, much like a human.
Comments welcome, thanks heaps.
About 6 months ago, Hurricane began freaking out over disturbances during the night and taking off into the aviary roof and wire. Both my birds are in an outdoor aviary in a big backyard and originally I believed that I had eliminated the reason for why this was occurring, as this tendency eventually stopped. Now that we've moved house to a different neighbourhood, Hurricane has had two more episodes of this in the past 2 months since living here. The first was just 2 nights ago, the latest incident was tonight. On all the other occassions it only happened in the pitch black night, between midnight and sunrise, but it is only 7.30pm and Hurricane has been spooked to the point of going into the aviary walls again. my other bird, Spitfire, barely even cares or sometimes gets spooked by his behaviour, but manages to get herself onto a perch and avoid hitting anything.
I'm so worried about Hurricane, nearly everytime this happens I take him inside and always inspect him for wounds and I'm hurting myself knowing that he probably is continuously giving himself a concussion and that must be so painful. I want the best for both of them, and want to figure out how to stop this entirely, but it seems to occur more frequently now, with less and less provocation.
The second to last time this happened (just 2 nights ago) he ended up with an obvious gash on the top of his head. I am so tempted to keep him as an inside bird, but he loves the outdoors and Spitfire and him are becoming such good friends.
My current plan is to just bring him in at night time before it even gets dark, every night for a few nights to a week, and let him into the aviary again in the morning so he can enjoy the sun with Spittie. As time goes on I will leave him outside later and later, in his small cage within the aviary, so he can get used to the sounds, smells and sights that might occur during the night without being in the big aviary and therefore without being able to gather enough speed to really injure himself if he flies into something.
I really want to train him to accept his aviary and the environment around it at night, has anyone else had this experience?
Spitfire and Hurricane are both hand reared doves who fell to the ground as babies, but unrelated. Spitfire is very sturdy and bossy and confident in nature yet Hurricane is very sensitive, slow, quiet, affectionate and sweet. I get the feeling this may just be his personality where he gets quite worried over little things, much like a human.
Comments welcome, thanks heaps.
