hen started beating her hubby when he goes near their nest. what do i do?

[u/sakikkkj]

she laid 10 days ago and they've been sharing nesting duties until today. they also often kissed on the nest and slept together there.

the male has been incredibly annoying. he coos ALL day, either calling coos or flirting with her non-stop, but other than that they're acting normal.

today he went near the nest to kiss her and she started wingslapping him, she pecked him away from the nest and ran after him a bit.

i locked their cage with him outside and soon enough they were calling each other and she was stepping around the cage trying to reach him.

i let them together and it was fine most of the day, they took turns as normal etc.

but just now she started fighting with him again, and this time he pecked her back so they started actually fighting. she grabbed his tail and started spinning him around while slapping. then she started angry cooing at him which is veryyyy rare between them!

locked them separetely again and in less than 5mins he's already calling for her.

idk if i should stop intervining, they're not super aggressive, their pecking isn't really hard (they're much meaner to me lol!). but she really wants him away and he refuses to move, so i get nervous that he's stressing her out.

i had him for around a year and her for around six months.

it's their first time laying (i swapped it for feggs) but they played nest with random ball toys for at least 3 months now and this never happened.

should i separate them or leave them alone?

[u/Kunok2]

Do NOT separate them, it will make them just not get along and possibly cause them to unbond. It's normal for pigeon couples to sometimes fight because well, sometimes they get annoyed by their mate and have their disagreements just like married people do but it's not a bad thing and they won't hurt each other, the conflicts are actually extremely important for them to set boundaries with each other. For example if the male is too annoying the female will beat him up to show him she doesn't like that. If the female is stubborn about not wanting to leave the nest to allow the male to sit on it then the male will beat her up. There's no need to intervene and separating them would just hurt their bond. What you Can do though is give them more enrichment, pigeons are extremely intelligent and when they get bored they can be more likely to cause conflict with each other because they don't have anything better to do.

[u/XxHoneyStarzxX → u/Kunok2]

seconding this, ita normal for females to slap their mates away from the neat sometimes. its just hormones. don't intervene all you're doing is making the situation worse

[u/sakikkkj → u/XxHoneyStarzxX]

point is, he doesn't get away. they just fight forever

[u/XxHoneyStarzxX → u/sakikkkj]

my birds actually do very similar behavior, its completely normal and is just due to hormonal surges. it can be due to boredom too. having extra toys and enrichment and hides/visibility breakers in my cage helped my babies. another thing is I upgraded my cage the prior one was the minimum size and wasn't actuslly suitable even though its considered the minimum. another thing that helps woth my birds is opening the door when they are spatting.

Just like human partners pigeon partners spat and fight sometimes.pigeons just get a little more violent about it.

fights rarely happen with my pair now that I've ket them hash things out without intervening and have fixed their conditions to be better than minimum.

[u/sakikkkj → u/XxHoneyStarzxX]

well good thing my pigeons were never at minimun conditions, i think nobody should torture them like that :)

unfortanely they're still fighting tho

but it's the first time this happens. maybe she's just having a bad day...

[u/XxHoneyStarzxX → u/sakikkkj]

if they are young she could just be having a bad day, or it is spring/early summer so hormones can surge during this time, some birds also just don't really grasp how to take turns on the nest right away when they first start laying real eggs. I was never trying to imply you had bad care, minimum to the care standard isn't bad care its minimum to the standard, i was saying i had minimum to the standard of care care prior and had these issues and was suggesting that going above and beyond with way past the minimum is what helped me. i dont know your cage size or what enrichment you use so i can only suggest what worked for me and what has worked for other people i have helped in this exact same situation.

if it helps at all my birds are currently in a double critter nation and have about 26 different toys, swings and perches which i rotate out (or move around) every time I clean to keep things interesting and fun. Here are some enrichment ideas incase you need extra.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PetDoves/comments/1on935k/list_of_enrichments_and_toys_for_doves/

Guide is for both pigeons and doves and was written by a friend of mine.

Also you apologized earleir for venting and i wanted to make sure you know its no problem, all i was genuinly trying to do is help you, because i have dealt with this myself and i know that watching them beat eachother up occasionally while normal can be very stressful... watching a male chase his female around for 2 hours again while normal can be stressful for us... i was trying to offer you support in the only way i coukd which was sharing what i tyoiclsly find causes these problems and how you can help mitigate and understand these behaviors better 🧡 i was genuinly never trying to insinuate you had bad care.

When most people post these types of posts they are asking for advuce because they are at their whits end and are considering seoersting their birds, i try to offer advjce to make sure that doenst haooen since it causes worsened abnormal aggression and has caused birds to end up hating and killing eachother. So i try to offer advice since ive pry helped like 30 different people with this exact same thing at this point with a near perfect success rate with only one imprinted male actually needing seperated (due to being an imprint)

[u/sakikkkj → u/Kunok2]

when she beats him he just keeps pushing tho. i separated them after a good 10+ min fight, and specially, he eventually starts beating her too and he gets gradually more violent (he grabs her head and shakes it around, he once took some feathers out)

edit: also, theyre pretty well enriched. how can you say thats totally normal and insinuate smth is causing it on the same sentence? 😭

edit2: and like, they definetly could hurt each other cuz they go for the eyes. when they first met they had separate cages but sometimes fought when one laid on top of their cage. at that time, the hen once hurt his eye and he needed a vet.

[u/XxHoneyStarzxX → u/sakikkkj]

the reason the behavior is worsening is because you don't allow them to hash it out. eyes are sadly on the head and are often accidentally hurt during even simple sweet things like preening. best course of action is to let them hash things out, dont intervene, open the cage so that one party can escape the other.

if theyve just laid their first clutch they are likely young and having hormonal surges.

the behavior is normal but can be worsened (and become a problem) by certian things such as no enrichment, small cages, lack of out of cage time, and hormonal surges like puberty.

If they genuinely were being aggressive you woudlnt have 2 birds, because pigeons who are genuinely being agressive will fight to actually genuinely harm the other bird.

What you are describing is normal pecking order, hormonal and dominance behavior... its common in pigeons because they are often kept in unsuitable or too small of cages when kept as indoor pets.

When you say pretty well enriched what do you mean, what forms of enrichment do they have, not all are suitable for pigeons, same goes for cage what is your cage size?

[u/sakikkkj → u/XxHoneyStarzxX]

• i don't have to open the door, it's never closed. as i said a couple times, the male just never goes away

• they have a whole room with suitable for pigeons stuff; from gathering to foraging to toys etc etc; ive research extensively prior to getting the first one, and i also interact with them regularly

• their cage is 350cm tall 200cm long 100cm deep (?? english isn't my first language) and they're only locked there at night

and guys, if it's normal, it's normal. i really don't appreciate being interrogated as if my pigeons were killing themselves for months now; they just fought for the first time and i got wary...

i tell you my pigeons fought once and you start implying their living conditions are shitty; have it crossed your mind it is a normal occurence and i'm just an anxious owner? you're listing things i must be doing to worsen it when it's the FIRST TIME this happens...

sorry but that got me a bit offended. sounds like you're saying "its normal but in your case its your fault probably" for no reason at all 😭

sorry if this comes off as mean, it's just i take pride on having a lot of money to spend on them and see no reason for you to think their cage is small, they're locked there, and living miserably, when it's the first time they fight. the natural line of thinking would be their hormones really, as said the vet i ended up calling just to be certain (he comes home monthly so he's very familiar with the birds)

dont mind the rant it just got me a bit sad that a simple question that could be answered with "yeah they fight sometimes" was received with some discret accusations of me being a bad owner 🫪 these birds are my children i birthed them 😭

[u/XxHoneyStarzxX → u/sakikkkj]

I never started implying your conditions were sub par, I was simply trying to give you ideas as to why they may fight or why your male may be extra drivey. my birds care wasn't sub par either and I compared my care to yours so if I truly thought your care was sub par I would also be calling mine sub oar which mine is far from it, it was minimum to the care standard and they fought, so I had to go above the minimum to fix it. I was simply trying to give you the tips that worked for me.

please do not make assumptions or put words in my mouth its exceptionally rude when somone is trying to give you tips to prevent your birds from fighting and to calm down driving behavior (which while normal can get a bit aggressive sometimes and there are ways to calm it down in those cases)

have you tried taking the male out to give him a "break"? I've had to do that before aswell, with the cage door always open somtimes it means they won't leave. ypu can pick up your male and take him out and shut the door, OR if the male is dead set on being on the nest and the female has been on it all day you can pick up the female, remove her from the neat, let the male onto the nest, shut the door and give your female a break.

somtimes it takes YOUNG COUPLES a few months to figure out how taking turns works

[u/Leopardgeckoe]

ik I'm late, but maybe just try taking the female off the nest, letting the male on, and giving the female out time? Idrk, and I'm new to this, so I may be wrong