what to do? male chasing the female

[ellieelectrons]

Hi All

I have two tame (handraised) IRNs - DNA sexed as male and female. They seem to get along reasonably well but the male regularly chases the female. If he can catch her he bites her. They regurgitate to each other. He sometimes does the love dance.

What I want to know is, how should I respond when he does this? I've tried all sorts of things but I just want to know that I'm not making the problem worse. Here are the things that I've tried.

- picking the female up so that he can't bite her anymore
- saying "no" to him in a stern voice
- putting my hand in front of his face like a stop sign as I say "no"
- putting him back in the cage.

With people, he is usually quite placid... but when I try to stop him from chasing her, he will bite me (luckily his bite isn't too bad). I find that when he gets in these moods quite often, I can't get him to go back in the cage.

What would you do? Could I be making the problem worse with my behaviour?

Ellie.

[Lags]

sorry i have no answers, but i do have the eaxct same problem with my female chasing my male around the place! if she gets close enough to him she will pin her eyes and lunge at him, and they both bite each others tail feathers. cheecky little things, they never seem to do any damage to each other, but i would love if they would be able to cuddle up to each other instead if fighting!

[ellieelectrons]

It does seem to be the way of the animal world... be the one who is picked on or the one who is picking on someone else! Rather sad really. Although, I must say, most of the time my guys get along ok... they go from being their own birds and doing their own thing to sitting close, talking to each other, regurgitating to each other, etc.

Ellie.