FINCHforum

hello,

i have 2 bronze winged mannikins, i believe they are both males. they have been in the same aviary for app 1 1/2 years. All of a sudden they are fighting. one is the aggressor unless he is housed by himself. he attacks the other birds in the aviary if the other boy is in residence or not. I have tried letting them work it out, seperating them, putting them in a divided cage...nothing so far has worked. I don't have the room to maintain seperate cages on a permanent basis, so before i rehome this finch, i need some advice/input that I may not have tried.

his history is that i got him from petco in a group of society finches and they thought they were sellign me society finches, i got them for a song, and they are in a large aviary with similar sized and similar temperament finches. they were fine for a at least a year before this started happening. i have not added any new birds and have not changed the structure of the aviary. the one thing that did happen to him about 6 months ago was he got caught by one of my cats and nearly decapitated. I was able to nurse him back to full health and he was fine. he was in the aviary for about 3 months peacefully before this behavior started.

i want some peace in my aviary again, can anyone offer any insight?

thanks to everyone who responds.

Have you tried all the different suggestions listed in this article?:

http://www.finchinfo.com/housing/reduci ... ession.php

hello


i have tried those suggesstions...except for the one housing him with another finch as i don't have the space to maintain two seperate cages on a permanent basis. i can't understand why his behavior changed. he was in a 72" long, 36" wide cage with 1 orange cheek, 2 owls, the other bronze winged mannikin, and 2 strawberries.

i don't have any nest or nest building materials because i don't want any babies, and i do have artificial plants in there that some of the other birds hide in when he is present.

is he just destined to live alone or should i get him a girl?

Although it's impossible to be sure without giving it a try, I suspect getting him a hen would exacerbate the situation (unless the pair can be housed in their own enclosure, which does not sound like an option for you). Your cage is large enough to fit more birds than you have, however, so you could try adding more finches to the enclosure to see if that makes a difference...the risk of course being that you may end up with more problems than you started with (i.e. what if the new birds upset the balance further instead of helping it?).

If you haven't already found a solution that works, consider posting a picture of the enclosure...Sometimes seeing a picture can inspire suggestions on things to try.

I really wish I had more answers for you, though; it is strange to me that he became aggressive (seemingly out of the blue) after all this time living peaceably in the enclosure. I imagine it is very frustrating for you.