FINCHforum

I had a male/female pair of zebras and when my mom passed away I inherited her pair of males. The males are in a larger cage that is 31" long, 20" wide and 35" tall. The m/f pair are in a 30"X18"X18" cage. I wanted to make a little less work for myself and put them together in the bigger cage. Well I did some reading and found that 3 pair is better than 2 and that they should be matched pairs, so I went out and bought two females so that I would have three m/f pairs. Well I started to try to put them all together and started with adding the two females to the males. Yikes, what a mess. I ended up taking the hens out of the cage before someone got seriously injured. But now I have three cages to mess with instead of two so I just made more work for myself.

What are the chances of me adding the two new hens to the m/f pair if I put them in a bigger cage? I go to the pet stores and see all these zebra's together in cages and all these beautiful aviaries and yet I seemed to have to keep my birds all seperate. Does anyone have any idea's I can try?

Thanks,
LisaB

Keep the males separate from the females, unless you want eggs.
I have 2 cages; one for the males and the other for the females.

Fighting could also be about the 2 being new to the group.

I has a somewhat similar problem introducing a male to 3 juveniles. The 3 were brought up together and they viewed the new male an an intruder. I put a divider in the cage and put ONE of the juveniles with the new male. The one on one pairing did the trick, they were not able to gang up on him. The other 2 were able to see the new male and one of their siblings thru the wire divider. After a week with this separation, I removed the divider and they were fine together.

You might try putting the hens in one cage and the males in another cage, then put the cages next to each other for a week. During that time they might start wanting to be with each other, rather than be aggressive.

You could also be seeing the start of mating behavior. I have one male that had an unsuccessful mating pairing with a female. After that, I put him back into my male cage, and he was a terror to the other males. He was in a mating mode and his behavior changed completely from his normal calm self.

If one of the new females is a pied or white, that could also be a problem. I have had 2 situations where the mother would be aggressive to one of her chicks, and both times the chick was pied. I have also heard about the white bird being picked on by the others in the cage.

I would think if you are planning on putting all three couples in a larger cage together you should be okay. We have a couple of cages set up like that and have very few problems. Actually I think it helps to bring out their flock mentality. While Gary has given you a lot of good suggestions, let me just share with you our standard method of operation.

Problems arise when you try to add new birds to ones in an already established environment. They tend to get territorial especially if there are eggs involved. I'd take everyone out of the big cage and divide them up by sex in the other two. Then thoroughly rearrange your larger cage, reposition perches, swings etc. and give them all separate nests (maybe even a spare or two) along with lots of fake greenery and a good amount of nesting material. If the surroundings are unfamiliar to it's previous occupants, then they won't feel as though they have something to defend. Then you should be able to put everyone back in together. There probably will be some minor incidents until a pecking order is established but all should fall into place relatively quick. Established couples will most likely pair up again and those left over will sort it out.

Of course with Zebras and their boisterous little personalities you could end up with a stinker who throws the whole arrangement into disarray, but chances are they should be able to coexist peacefully.

Thank you both for the great tips. I just have two more questions.

I keep reading that you shouldn't have an odd number of birds in a cage, so will it be okay to have only three males in one cage and three females in another, at least for a little while?

I'd also like to know what you all use for greenery. I thought about draping my cages with silk plants however my budgies have free flight in this room and so I wasn't sure if them chewing on the silk plants would be harmful for them.

By the way, all my finches are the normal grey except for one female who is more of a fawn. There are currently no nest in the cages, since it is getting dark early here where we live I am hoping to get my hen to stop laying now. I had not rearranged the big cage so that was probably one of my mistakes right off the bat. I am hoping to buy one of the side by side flight cage set ups in the near future, that would really help I think.

Thanks again for the great information.
LisaB

For a short time, three should be OK in a cage, but do keep an eye on them. Trios often don't work, because two will buddy up and pick on the third.

I use plastic plants inside the cages. They get pooped on and need washing from time to time. I also use plastic plants on the outside of the breeding cages, to provide privacy. Plants inside the cage can also be seen by the birds as nesting material, so they will pull at them and slowly destroy them (but it takes a long, long time).