New boy with bonded pair?

[Mike17]

I have a pair of eccies, which I bought as a bonded pair. The hen laid two eggs in May which proved to be infertile, and after I took the nesting box out of the cage, she laid another two which also appeared to have been no good. We have a non-tame male who spends his day on the verandah where the hen's cage is located. This boy, Joey, is madly in love with Ayu, the hen, and spends his day gazing longingly at Ayu, hanging off the cage or nearby and often feeding her. This irritates Ayu's "bonded" male friend and he's tried to attack Joey.

My question is, can I introduce Joey to Ayu more formally? I'm worried that he and the original male, Lexei, will fight. The situation with the pair being in a large cage is not ideal, I am retiring soon and will build much larger aviaries for them when I'm in my own house. To complicate matters even more, our tame eccy boy, Alex, also goes to the verandah during the day, and while he's mildly interested in the hen, he's more interested in humping my hand than any hen, apparently However, the formerly timid Joey will now chase Alex away from both the hen's cage, and food. Joey is part of a non-bonded pair we bought a year ago, but the hen died last December. Joey was really frightened of her!

I'm not sure that Ayu's "mate" Lexei is fertile despite seeing them "at it" several times, although not lately, and Ayu seems to prefer being fed by Joey from outside the cage. Maybe I should just get another hen!

 

[MikeyTN]

It is NOT wise to stick two males with a female in the same cage together! They will fight for sure. Ekkies are not bonding pairs as one female may mate with several males out in the wild with multiple males caring for her chicks. Same with the males will mate with other females as well. It might be wise for you to get another hen. They're known to be problematic mating habit that cause infertility as one study shows they do better in a flight aviary with others around. But at the same time either your male or the female may be infertile. That's usually when the breeder sells out their supposedly bonded pair/breeding pair.

 

[Mike17]

Thanks, Mikey. I wasn't considering putting Joey in the cage. I was aware of wild eccy breeding behaviour, but non-wild behaviour is confusing me! I guess we'll have to put up with the situation until we can build a flight aviary, which isn't possible right now- I'm in remote Western Australia and moving to Tasmania early next year. That's like moving from LA to NY except there's an expensive ferry journey in between! I'm not sure yet whether my employer will move all my stuff to Tasmania yet, and don't want a dismantled aviary (or rather, more aviaries!) to complicate the issue. I did have the eccies in a small aviary, but I'd hesitate to call it a "flight aviary", it's more suited to the Bourke's and 'tiels that are in it currently.

 

[MikeyTN]

It might be wise to try new things after settling down at your new place. It would be worse if you had chicks to care for at the same time during the move. As they're complicated to feed to begin with.

 

[Mike17]

Yes, we didn't really want chicks at that time although it's OK now as some months before we move.