urgent help! 1 bird breaking others beak

[ForEvaBuzzed]

hi my female peachfaced lovie has just broken the others beak but not the whole thing (just a fair slice off the side). how do i stop her doing this? i've got them separated for now but they want to be near each other. thing is they have and still do get along well but out of nowhere she will attack him. she has been nesting for a long time 2 months or more but it hasn't been much of a problem before just the last 2-3 days. she would have fits now and then which were just her telling him off nothing like now. she is always aggressive to us he is the oppisite. could it be the difference in species? i added a pic of the male as i forget what kind he is. you can see abit of beak poking out and he is bleeding but you cant see it well. had blu3 (female) for two yrs and schwifty (male) for about 9 months. please help .............leaving page open just watching a movie will check back in an hour and 1/2 ish

 

[ChristaNL]

Question 1: are they DNA-tested? (Realy male-female?)

Question 2: is your male even an adult yet? If not then she wants to mate-> he hasn't got a clue/ not interested -> she gets frustrated and can even end up killing him.


If one bird is aggressive to the other you do not lock them up together - simple.
It only ends in tears.






("love"birds can be just as nasty and aggressive as any other species)

 

[GaleriaGila]

Please, please, if your bird is injured and bleeding, please, please find an avan vet, or an expedrienced breeder, or somebody who can help. The danger of bleeding out, or getting infected, is a huge threat.
I'm glad you separated them, as Christa said!
They may never get along... maybe they will, and maybe not. Birds are just not predictable in that way.
Thank you for caring enough to reach out for help.

 

[ForEvaBuzzed]

both tested, mature and interested... a lot. and they get along 99% of the time since i'v had them, just these recent psycho outbursts but not just towards him eg. wind blows curtains = curtains must die(rarely does this) and its not playing. made a vet appointment for tomorrow, nothing is open as the vet is out. he seems to be fine and got rid of the broke off part while we weren't looking but just in case i'm taking him in. they don't live in a cage but have one to got to. and they are not both peachfaces. she is, he isn't. and he isn't aggressive at all but will defend himself and stand his ground. he feeds her, helps her with the nest gathering and they play. its like she goes crazy for second then she is all cuddly and nice in an instant.

 

[EllenD]

You need to separate them immediately! No question on this at all, as it is escalating. The male needs to see a Certified Avian Vet ASAP, if his beak is bleeding, that means that he's in pain, as that portion of his beak is extremely sensitive and full of nerve-endings.

You need to separate them, they can no longer live in the same cage, and they can only be out together under supervision. I'm sorry if that's not what you want to hear (I'm assuming that you were purposely trying to breed them), but this sometimes happens, even with an opposite-sex pair that seems to be bonding/bonded and that you think is going to eventually mate...sometimes they do mate and then this happens, sometimes they never do mate, sometimes everything seems completely normal except for one of the pair occasionally attacking the other...but if she is attacking him in this way, where his beak was broken and bloody, the next-step is he loses an eye, toes, a foot, etc., and eventually much, much worse. You're very likely to come home to a dead bird soon if you don't take my advice...I bred Budgies, Cockatiels, and Conures for around 20 years, and this happens. It could be her hormones raging, it could be that she is just an extremely dominant bird, it could be that what you are seeing and thinking is "them being very interested in mating" is actually her wanting him dead...If she's been vocally aggressive, this is the next step, and it will only escalate...Please separate them right now, into their own cages with their own toys, food, etc. You can try keeping them side-by-side for now, but while you say "They really want to be together", you don't know that at all actually, and even if they do, obviously they can't be together, look at what is happening...

 

[Kentuckienne]

EllenD gives good advice. With birds, we can’t put human intentions on their actions. It takes a lot of experience, knowledge and close observation to know what a bird intends. It’s simple but effective to assume that they mean what they do - in other words, not only is she “not that into him” but she wants to attack and harm him. Don’t think she will change, don’t think things will get better ... assume they will keep going in the same direction: usually tolerant or even getting along, followed by serious harm to one of them. A beak injury is very painful - birds use their beaks to explore the world and can sense tiny variations in texture and pressure, so you can imagine that a break would hurt. Imagine for a moment that someone hit you and broke off one of your front teeth halfway. Think it would hurt? Think you would wait for the dentist to open on Monday? Or would you be at the emergency room screaming “make it stop!”? Your bird can’t use English so he can’t tell you it hurts, how much it hurts...he doesn’t know about emergency rooms and couldn’t take himself there anyway. He is completely dependent on you for everything. It’s a big responsibility but we are here to help. Where do you live? Maybe someone knows a good avian vet or other resource in the area.

 

[ForEvaBuzzed]

well as i said in the original entry, i've got them separated in different rooms for now (i dont have 2 cages) also i never lock them in the cage and i only have it 1. incase i need to move them 2. so they know where to get fed and watered and they hardly go in there. as for them being interested well i mean 1-2 times a week they mate. thing is no eggs in her nest. which leads me to think she may be egg bound which is making her hormonal? or just too dominant or hormonal. as for the vet well its either i drive 10 hours to a vet which will take twice the time rather then waiting for the vet here to open. ill talk to him in the morning. i'm in rural central australia where it takes 6 hours to get to a decent hospital, only close things nearby are the pub, a super market and a vet, we dont even have a school and only 3 police

 

[ForEvaBuzzed]

also our vets open 7 days a week

 

[ChristaNL]

It really sucks being stuck without any help nearby.

(Sorry for being callous: I just figured it the bird was still alive by the time I responded -over an hour after your mesage first appeared- he would no longer be in danger of bleeding to death.)

Is the question now: does he eat and drink properly?
If not: get him 'babyfood' (mush - the stuf you would feed anyone without teeth) - pureed fruit will do if you have nothing else, just make it soft so he can get something inside his body that will give him the energy to survive.


(LOL not Red Bull and all that crap of couse )

Get him checked out as soon as you can and shop around for (or build) some cages.
It's okay to keep them in the same room as long as they can't get at each other.

Mating once/ twice a week is really not impressive as far as matings go.
But he is really young to be breeding (here we only start with 1 1/2 - 2 year old birds).
Both could be reasons why there are no fertilised eggs.
And of course she could really not like him - and there is nothing that will change that.

Anyway- that is for later to worry about - first make sure he lives and heals (esp if he is a social and nice bird who could father some more nice social young ones).

 

[DoubleTake]

Just know crossbreeding lovebirds is not advised. Peach-faced with an eyering(looks like a black masked) can create health issues with the hybrid baby and the babies most likely will be unable to reproduce. Hybrids can be confused and not know how to act since they are both.

 

[EllenD]

Something that I'd like to make a point of, and that really alarmed me when you said it because it indicates that you might not be ready to allow your birds to breed in the first place, is what you said about the possibility that "she may be egg-bound and this may be causing her to be hormonal"...I hope that you'll listen to me on this, as it's extremely important if you are going to keep allowing your birds to mate and possibly breed...(forgetting that you absolutely do need to keep them separate for right now)...

Egg-Binding is not a condition that causes birds to become hormonal...Egg-Binding is a critical, emergent medical condition that is always 100% fatal to the hen without immediate medical intervention...And I mean immediate, as in within an hour or so of the hen first displaying outward symptoms...And it is also about the most-painful way for a bird to die.

The fact that you don't have any Certified Avian Vets anywhere near you is something to really take-into account when you are thinking about breeding your birds, or allowing them to mate, as well as not-separating them when they are becoming extremely aggressive with each other, to the point that the male now has a broken beak (at least that is what I think you meant, forgive me if I misunderstood what you said about the vet that is close to you, is this a Certified Avian Vet, or just an "exotics" or general vet? There is a massive difference in this particular situation, as surgery is often required to save the hen's life)...

When a female bird becomes Egg-Bound, one of a couple of things can happen...First, the egg that is "stuck" inside her may rupture/break, and the contents will then leak-out into her abdominal cavity, which quickly turns into a serious infection in their belly called "Peritonitis", which is very quickly fatal without heavy-duty, IV antibiotics and usually a surgery to clean-out the abdominal cavity (this is the same reason that people usually die when their Appendix actually ruptures inside of them, as it holds/stores bacteria inside of it, and this spills into the abdominal cavity...The second thing that can happen, and what usually is the end-result of Egg-Binding, is that the egg remains "stuck" and cannot be passed out of the bird's body, and the poor hen just continues to try to pass the egg for hours and hours, and basically they exhaust themselves doing-so...With the egg just sitting there, there are many different things that can happen, but just know that it is horribly painful for the hen to go through, and the outcome without getting the egg to pass out of the hen's body within an hour or two is death 100% of the time...

So if you don't have a Certified Avian Vet closer to you than 10 hours away, this may be a very serious reason for you to consider not allowing your birds to mate anymore, or in the future (again, if I misunderstood about the one vet that is close to you being a CAV, then I apologize greatly)....You also have to keep in-mind that there are a million other things that can and do go wrong when hens are laying eggs, chicks are hatching, parents are raising chicks, and most of all, if the owner decides to hand-feed the chicks at any point and doesn't have a great-deal of experience and education in hand-feeding/hand-raising...And the thing is that even if you don't intend on pulling the chicks out of the nest-box between 2-3 weeks old and hand-raising/hand-feeding them at all, and your plan is to simply allow the parents to completely and totally raise the babies, you still must always be ready, totally prepared, and capable of taking-over for the parents and raising the chicks, as often parent birds will reject the chicks, will kick the chicks out of the nest-box, will purposely hurt the chicks, etc., and then you aren't given any choice in the matter and you must take-over...And without a CAV close to you, it's extremely difficult to get through that process without the help and support of a CAV close by...

All of that being said, for right now, the problem at-hand you're facing is the issue between your male and female, and the fact that again, this behavior is escalating in a very classic fashion, first there is verbal aggression, then little, quick, physical "picking" and such, and now the male has a pretty significant injury. And though the break in his beak will most-likely grow out and heal fine, because of where the crack/break in his beak is, he's most likely in a lot of pain (there are thousands of nerve-ending in their beaks)...

Any time I have faced a situation like this, I have asked myself "What if that had been his eye?"...and then also "What if next time she gets a hold of his neck/throat? Or worse yet, what if the next time it's one of their heads?" I've been there, as a former bird breeder all kind of things happen to birds with hormones-raging, jealousy going on, etc. And I had one breeding situation that ended with 2 dead hens, 2 dead/mangled babies, and 5 orphaned babies, 3 of which were under 2 weeks old (it's extremely difficult and trying to have to hand-feed a baby bird that is under 2 weeks old)...And I will never get the picture of my 2 dead and mangled hens and the babies out of my mind...

All you can do is learn from what happened and take the necessary precautions to protect both of your birds and to ensure that this never happens again...And that probably means changing some of your routines and/or the ways that you have been doing things...Such as the cage situation...If I were you, and this is just my opinion, but I would quickly get another cage so that each bird has their own cage, their own toys, dishes, etc. And then I would try to think of some ways that you can modify how you house your birds, and how you allow them to directly interact with each other.

I can't make these decisions for you, no one else can, we can only tell you of our own experiences and what we know to be true when it comes to a pair of opposite-sex birds of the same species who have been mating and housed together forever, yet are now becoming increasingly aggressive and violent with each other, now to the point that one of them has a pretty significant injury, and the chances of one of them suffering a very traumatic injury are becoming greater and greater. I certainly don't want you to have to come home to what I came home to, especially with your 2 birds that are not breeder-birds, but rather seem to be very loving pets that you care about a great deal...I think I misjudged the situation at first from what you described, i thought that you had these birds for the sole-purpose of breeding them, but I don't think that this is the case at all, I think these are your pets that you care about a great deal, and I'd hate to see anything tragic happen to them...

 

[EllenD]

I just realized that I forgot to give you any information or direction as to what to do if you do think that your hen may be egg-bound. The best way to prevent this from happening in the first place is to make sure that your hen is eating a very nutritious, balance, varied diet with a staple of pellets and a seed-mix, along with a lot of fresh veggies every single day (give fruit sparingly, as it contains a lot of sugar, which is not good for them)...With hens that are mating and may start laying eggs, you also must make sure that they always have access to both a Cuttlebone and a Mineral-Block at all times...Since you've not been using a cage for your birds, I'm not sure where you can put both a Cuttlebone and a Mineral-Block so that she'll always have access to it and be influenced to eat both on a daily basis, but try to figure that out, because the leading-cause of hens becoming Egg-Bound is them not getting enough Calcium (among other minerals) in their diets...Also, it's a really good idea to start feeding her Egg-Food on a daily basis in addition to her regular diet. You can either buy a bag of already-prepared Egg-Food at Petco, Petsmart, etc., or online, or you can actually make your own Egg-Food for her daily by preparing eggs for her with the shells ground-up and mixed-in to the eggs. This is a great way to provide proper nutrition to a laying hen, and is much more efficient and more easily absorbed (vitamin and mineral wise) than simply giving them a commercial multi-vitamin. Egg-Food really should be a regular, daily part of a hen's diet...

***If you ever do think that your hen may be Egg-Bound (signs and symptoms include the hen lying on the bottom of the cage, on the floor, etc., anywhere but on a perch, the hen becoming suddenly extremely lethargic, suddenly sleeping a lot, laying/sitting with her legs spread wide-apart, like she is straddling something, and if you see her continuously and constantly straining, like she's trying to pass the egg or have a bowel-movement but can't...Also, hens who are carrying an egg tend to pass very large, messy droppings)...

The first thing you should do if you see your hen behaving this way (they also sometimes become very vocal in a whining kind of way, due to the pain, it's very upsetting and you'll definitely know that something is very wrong if this happens) is to get a towel, wrap your hen up in it very gently, and take her to your bathroom. Get a small container, like a Tupperware container that is shallow and long, along with some Olive Oil, and some Q-Tips. Bring this all to the bathroom along with your hen. Shut the door to the bathroom and start the shower on full-hot, leaving the curtain open, so that you will fill the bathroom up with dense steam. Fill the shallow container with warm water, not warm/hot enough to burn her obviously, but as warm as she can comfortably sit in. Then take a small towel, like a hand-towel or wash-cloth, and place it into the container, and place your hen in the shallow container, her feet down obviously, with her belly/abdomen/vent completely submerged in the very warm water (the towel is to keep her from slipping around, and it also tends to make them feel a bit more secure)...Then place the container with your hen sitting in it, belly and vent completely submerged, as close to or in the dense steam as you can get her. Then allow her to soak this way while in the dense steam for as long as you can keep the steam going in the shower, and also making sure that the water in the shallow container that she's sitting in stays very warm...

The steam and the warm water is meant to relax the hen's muscles...Having them in dense steam tends to fully relax their entire body, while having their entire belly/abdomen and their vent fully submerged in very warm water will directly-relax her abdominal muscles, the muscles that control her vent contraction/dilation, and hopefully the muscles that will allow the egg to pass out of her body...As I stated, do this for a good period of time, but you don't want to stress her anymore than she is, so doing this in 10-15 minute periods, then allowing her a short break is important...

When you have had the hen soaking and steaming for 10-15 minutes, remove her from the container wrap her up in a clean, dry, warm towel (if you can actually put a slightly dampened hand-towel in the microwave for 30-45 seconds to warm it up it can also help a great deal)...But, before you wrap her in the warm, dry towel, take a Q-Tip and soak the end of it in Olive Oil, and then very gently apply Olive Oil all around her vent, including the very edge of the opening...DO NOT EVER INSERT THE Q-TIP OR ANYTHING ELSE INSIDE HER VENT, just coat the very inner ring of the vent with a good layer of Olive Oil. This will assist the egg is passing if it makes it to the edge of the opening of the vent.

Repeat this process as many times as needed until you can contact your CAV or get her to a 24/7 emergency animal hospital. From what I've read and heard, most-all 24/7 animal hospitals, even if they don't have a CAV or any Avian Specialist on-call or on-staff, they are typically familiar with Egg-Binding, and they know what needs to be done in-order to get the egg to pass...They usually start by giving the hen an injection of medication to influence the passing of the egg, depending on how long the hen has been in distress...If that doesn't work quickly, or if too much time has already passed, then they will put the hen under sedation using short-term gas, and either open the uterus/shell-gland up and remove the egg whole, or some very skilled and experienced CAV's will rather do a less-invasive procedure where they go through the vent, rupture the egg purposely with a small pin-hole, suck out the contents of the egg, and then slowly remove the shell through the vent...It just depends on the vet.

****It's extremely important that you never, ever, ever try to do anything yourself in a manual way to try to get the egg to pass. I've seen a lot of people in forums and in actual YouTube videos advising people to do things like "massage the hen's abdomen", "physically palpate the egg through the hen's belly and then try to push the egg out", etc., and this is not only irresponsible of them to advise (and very foolish), but it almost always results in the egg rupturing and the hen dying. Never, ever put any pressure on the hen's belly or on/around the egg, in fact it's a good idea to not even touch the hen's belly or go anywhere near the egg..Also, never ever stick anything inside of the hen's vent, that's another foolish thing I've seen advised, where someone was actually trying to "widen" the hen's vent in order to try to "grab" the egg and pull it out somehow...That's a big no-no...

 

[LordTriggs]

they need to permanently be separate, never allow them together unsupervised. Lovebirds are extremely feisty and can turn on each other in a heartbeat. If you suspect egg-binding get to the vet with her NOW