Until 1 month ago they were lovers, now they're fighting?

[RaduPalanga]

RaduPalanga

How cow! He is like" HEYYY baby! Look at my big NEST!!" hahahaha.. I see eggs in your immediate future.

Leave the nest as it is. Just throw a few pieces of nesting materials on the ground so he can show her his fancy moves by plopping it in the nest. ;)

I guess so, yeah, lol.

So... the previous post I made (with the video and all that) was made at around 4.30 PM), when I just came back from the store, let her in the cage, filmed that & posted it. Then in like 15 minutes or so I had to head back out, so I didn't have time to inspect their behaviour for too long.

Now, I returned home (9.30 PM). This is how I found them - see attached photo. Only the male was sitting in the nest, she is standing on a stick. Maybe that's because he's familiar with the surroundings, and she's still like a "stranger"?

Also, this behaviour I'm about to describe seems to happen now, as well as earlier (when I first came home). He's "picking" at her with his beak. Kind of like a poke... he pokes her with his beak. Not sure how to pot it. Maaaybe I'll catch it on video...

My girlfriend says it looks like he is trying to show his dominance, not trying to be violent etc. Because he aims for her beak, not her back / tail. That's what she says.

What to make of this?

[RaduPalanga]

Okay. We inspected their moves for a while now. Like... 10 minutes or so.

I managed to get some videos of them.

Here's video number 1. You can see her trying to go inside the nest, but he wouldn't let her. The important action stops after about ~50 seconds - I forgot to cut the rest of the video out, so...

Video number 2. You can see him pecking at her (that's the term, I guess).

And video number 3. This is after we put in some more nesting material, to see what happens. Well... see for yourself

Also (and this is something my girlfriend saw, I couldn't get it on camera), he doesn't let her eat. I mean... see those two semi-transparent recipients that are filled with food... he doesn't let her go in there.

I did see her eating from the stick that is hung more to the top of the cage (upper-right in video ). She can eat from that...

Update on the eating thing : here's a video I managed to take. As you can see, she did eat a bit. He did get close to her, then started the courtship song again... but then scared her off somehow.
2 minutes after uploading that video, I saw her eating again. This time, he didn't seem so violent towards this. My girlfriend says he was more violent the first time she saw him going at her for eating - which he isn't doing so as "heavy" as before. Damn, I messed up this last phrase

[Stuart whiting]

RaduPalanga

Pleased to see that you've got yer new hen, in truth you've got a whole new learning experience with the pairing and general courtship of birds,

I have watched yer videos and to be onest I can't see anything that is unusual,

Your birds are just simply acting in a normal way, most birds when you see this kind of activity they are basically just testing out one another,

Zebras are actually quite placid when it comes to pairing and courtship compaired to some other birds,
Over the years I've bred British chaffinches for exhibition and the courtship of these birds quite often leads to the hen to complete exhaustion as the cock bird will drive the hen to nest no matter what it takes, some European softbills are even worse especially redstarts as these birds have been know to kill eaither sex if there not properly introduced when pairing to breed, these can be very difficult to pair at times.

There's onestly nothing to worry about from what I saw of yer videos, this is just normal behaviour

[RaduPalanga]

RaduPalanga

Pleased to see that you've got yer new hen, in truth you've got a whole new learning experience with the pairing and general courtship of birds,

I have watched yer videos and to be onest I can't see anything that is unusual,

Your birds are just simply acting in a normal way, most birds when you see this kind of activity they are basically just testing out one another,

Zebras are actually quite placid when it comes to pairing and courtship compaired to some other birds,
Over the years I've bred British chaffinches for exhibition and the courtship of these birds quite often leads to the hen to complete exhaustion as the cock bird will drive the hen to nest no matter what it takes, some European softbills are even worse especially redstarts as these birds have been know to kill eaither sex if there not properly introduced when pairing to breed, these can be very difficult to pair at times.

There's onestly nothing to worry about from what I saw of yer videos, this is just normal behaviour

So... it's normal for the cock to peck (violently?) at the hen and not let her sit besides him in the nest? I mean right now he's sitting comfortably in the nest, while she's standing on a stick on the other side of the cage.

[RaduPalanga]

Look at them. He's in the nest, while she's on the ground, sitting somewhat comfortably (or so it seems... better than on a stick, I guess, huh?).

She's been there for ~2 hours or so. He wouldn't let her in the nest, I guess.

He's been out of the nest for a few times - sitting on the edge of the nest, while singing his courtship song. Needless to say, she remained stationary on the ground, unimpressed by the male's attempts to... something, lol.

It's 1.30 AM now.

At around 12 PM, my girlfriend claims she saw the HEN chasing the male. I was like "yay, finally!". That was a one-time-only thing, it seems.

[haroun]

oh my god , lol what have i wrote lol i was tired and used my useless smartphone
@RaduPalanga enjoy
black fac ----> black face
split x split ---->>> breeding split to split
congrates for you CFW Hen do not worry about , the eggs will come soon , of corse she is new she has to take time with her new house, at first she has to feel that she is security

@Stuart whiting btw in the same day i put a BC male and FC hen in same box put the nest , i checked the nest in the afternoon there was an eggs so fast so furious , i think the male has understand that this egg is not fertil because he was chasing that hen just after the mating , do you think that it will a good one or the second one will be ?

[Stuart whiting]

RaduPalanga

Mate ...all I'm saying is that what I saw on yer video is normal behaviour, yea they do peck at one another and yea as you put it ...it does perhaps look a little violent if your not used to seeing this, onestly mate this is nothing,

When you actually see a bird pin another bird down on the floor and then rip feathers from its head ...then you want to worry and take action

I've seen all soughts of bird activity over the years of bird keeping and is onestly upto you wheather you wish to believe or not.

You mention the birds activity at 12 pm and it's now 1.30am, with all due respects the birds should surely be asleep at this time of hr

[Stuart whiting]

haroun

Hi there mate, being onest that first egg will definitely be clear unless yer hen has been with another cock bird a few days beforehand

If youve seen the pair nest build together etc and actually seen the cock bird tread the hen a good few times then I'd be happy enough to say that the eggs are more than likely to be fertile

Hope yer zebs breed for yer

[haroun]

Stuart whiting yes she was with another bc male there is more than 10 days ago from witch i got very beauty offsprings especialy grey and LB males with very marked black colours at cheek and bereast . my goal is to get next year BCFC BlackcheekFawnCheek by crossing the 2 clutches from same hen and from those 2 bc males .
hen start laying eggs my experience shown me to not breed them in july no eggs will be layed and if the offsprings will suffert from the heat in the nest , they feel the automne

[Stuart whiting]

haroun

Yes mate I can fully understand in where yer coming from, I suppose that is why many breeders and even the wild birds of Africa apparently breed during the winter time as I suppose July down where you are must be rediculasly hot and the little youngsters would simply cook in the nests

I believe a lot of birds appear to breed after what they call the end of the rain season,

I think I might be right

Please correct me if I'm wrong as I'm seriously interested in how and when African breeders breed there birds aswell as understanding about the times of the African wild bird ( waxbill - Estrilldid ) finch breeding cycles etc

[haroun]

Stuart whiting yes you are right , even canary breeders here stop breeding during july /august , i vad never breed my zebras during this month cuze they molt in and by there nature instinct know that the feed and water are no more avalaible in nature when it's the hot dry season, but this year is an exeption even for u in GB , due to al nino the medditeranian weather has completly changed t , hot/warm winter with minimum of rain and no snow , and cold /fresh spring and begging of winter till third week of july , i'll not spoke about US ! i have seen in some special news in same weekend 4 extreme meteorological phenomenas, flooding, bleezard, huricane, and forest fire wow
I was completely confused And my brooding season was extended , worst I was tempted to make a more turn or two when I saw that on the end of season bc and some interesting colours come out from clutches, most couples have kept the rule not to reproduce, others done but with bad results loss of 2 young after leaving the nest completely dirty they could not resist even with bath and tonics. thes two were a kinder surprise for me a silvery and chocolate very very dark fawn one
So never brooding here in summer

[RaduPalanga]

RaduPalanga

Mate ...all I'm saying is that what I saw on yer video is normal behaviour, yea they do peck at one another and yea as you put it ...it does perhaps look a little violent if your not used to seeing this, onestly mate this is nothing,

When you actually see a bird pin another bird down on the floor and then rip feathers from its head ...then you want to worry and take action

I've seen all soughts of bird activity over the years of bird keeping and is onestly upto you wheather you wish to believe or not.

You mention the birds activity at 12 pm and it's now 1.30am, with all due respects the birds should surely be asleep at this time of hr

Yeah, I usually cover them with a blanket (we have to, otherwise they wake us up at 5 AM, lol) at about 9 PM. But last night, we wanted to see what they'll do... given the short time they've had together in the cage for the day.

He's not ripping any feathers from her body. He's just pecking at her - somewhat violent - but she doesn't seem to be afraid (otherwise she would fly away, right?). It looks like he's feeding her, but he's not, lol.

We saw the hen eating again. This time around, the male didn't seem to care enough to go down & try to scare her away. So... they're getting along so far

[Babs _Owner]

RaduPalanga

If you feel the male is being territorial and keeping her from food and water. Simply do this.

Remove both birds in a safe box/cage.

Remove all items from cage.

Empty the nest.
This is a good time to quickly do a cage cleaning.

Put back in the items, but completely rearrange them.

Put the nest in empty in a different spot. Refill your nesting cage with materials.

Now reintroduce the pair to the cage at the same time. This way they are both going into new territory at the same time. This usually removes the guarding behavior from the original occupant (your male). And both birds see it as a brand new cage and equal territory.

[Stuart whiting]

haroun very interesting, all sounds good mate, incidentally do you keep and breed any other variety of foreign finches

Btw...I've now added you to friends list

[Stuart whiting]

Babs you've just mentioned exactly what I was thinking , totally agree 100 % I've tried this at times and have also found that this often works