Bizarre Zebra Finch Courtship

[Arama]

So this is going to sound so utterly bizarre but I swear its true!

I have a pair of hens that have paired up (sisters). They are completely and utterly devoted to each other to the point they ignore the males.The courtship ritual that for the longest time was not a problem until today when it landed one of them in the hospital cage.

Before they mate they position themselves head to tail with each other and grasp each others tailfeathers and bend them.They will do this repetatively for roughly 5-10minutes until they randomly pluck a feather from each others tail making their adorable love sounds the entire time. After they each have their feather they will wave it at each other then mate. They both seem to really enjoy this process which has lead to both females having half of their tailfeathers left.

This morning Big Trucks partner (one of the twins as I call them) grabbed what must have been a main feather and pulled and well it resulted in blood all over the place. So Big Truck has been washed and placed in my hospital cage with some heat and lovely treats.

I'm just wondering if anyone has ever witnessed this with their birds. I know the only way to prevent it is to break them up but I'm kind of hoping some time apart to feather back out and some seperation might prevent it in the future.

[Babs _Owner]

Arama

Both pairs do it the same way? So when they are "performing" Each bird's head is facing the other bird's tail feather?

You gotta get a video of that.

[lovezebs]

Arama

That is an odd one and no, I have never seen this type of courtship behavior before.

The closest I've seen, is my Parrot Finches, where the male grabs the female by the feathers while mating, sometimes pulling out mouthfuls of feathers in the process.