Need help with aggressive / dominant male zebra!

[mjk2287]

Hello, I’m new to the forum and I’m looking for some help with my zebras. I’ll try not to make this too long and describe the situation as best as possible. I’ll start at the beginning. My girlfriend friend and I decided to get a pet about 2 months ago and after doing a few weeks of research and visiting pet stores we decided on getting zebras. We found a pair of males that were housed together and after talking to the the manager we decided on these guys. The dominant one is a fawn (Keenan) and the other is the normal coloration (Maynard). The manager told us that one (we believe Keenan) was housed with a mate and had a few clutches before the female was sold and Maynard was put in the cage with him. They were together a few weeks and there was no observed aggression or feather plucking. We ordered everything and tried to set up our cage in the same manner as the one they were in.

The cage we have is the vision M01 which is 24x15x20. We have 2 perches at the top at the ends of the cage, a swing at the top and one perch in the middle near the bottom. We also had a coconut nest in the cage that was the exact same as in the cage at the store. When we first brought them home they were very mellow until about the third day when Keenan became aggressive and chasing and pecking at Maynard. We immediately removed the coconut nest as he seemed to take sole ownership of it. For about the first 3 weeks there was some bickering which we expected as there would be a pecking order. I had to put in 2 food and water dishes in the first week because Keenan would constantly chase Maynard away from them, which still continues now. Keenan has become increasingly more aggressive by the week. He will call and then attack Maynard over seemingly everything. Food, bath, cuttlebone etc. He will also force Maynard on the bottom grate and won’t allow him on any perches for periods of time. I tried giving them parsley leaves to eat once and Keenan very aggressively chased Maynard all over the cage for 15 minutes then tried to build a nest on a perch with the leaves. I removed them immediately and now finely chop everything. But Keenan seems to only have nesting on his mind. He tries nesting with newspaper, feathers and even spray millet stems. I can’t even give them spray millet because of his aggression. He’s now taken ownership of the 2 top perches and will chase Maynard off them. He will bill click almost constantly and make soft whimpering noises which I’ve found out is a mating thing. He started chasing Maynard and plucking feathers also. The final straw came the other night when he plucked a bunch of feathers off Maynard and tried to nest build with them.

I’ve been reading and searching everything I could to try to de-escalate this situation. I’ve searched on here and read all the guides I’ve found about aggression. I tried moving the perches which only worked for a day before he was back at it. We draped a dark sheet over the back and sides of the cage a few inches to give them a sense of security and again it only calmed things for a day. It seems like every time he just gets more aggressive. Needless to say we are very frustrated and exhausted over this. We ended up ordering a prevue flight cage with the intention of separating them.

So, is separating them a good idea? We plan on keeping the cages next to each other. Should we give Keenan his nest so he can finally build one? Can they stay separated and not be depressed? Is there anything we need to watch for? Sorry for the long post! We just want to make sure our boys are happy and healthy! Thanks for reading this and I appreciate your help!!

[wildbird]

Consider exchanging the aggressive one for another male at the pet store, or returning both and get two society males. They don't fight. Keenan wants his mate back and will continue to pick on the other one. The only other way is to put them in different cages. I much prefer Societies.

[Fraza]

Keenan is just still paired up but he will soon forget it doesn’t take that long if you do seperate then and let them see each other for about 4 weeks then mover around all the perches etc, and add a foraging box

Then allow Maynard back in, Make sure Keenan is in the main cage as he is the dominant one u want Maynard to know that he is going into another birds cage and it is not his own, this way Keenan won’t feel threatened

Or there’s another two options, 1 you could swap Maynard or Keenan for a female 2you could add onother Male as zebras rule is that they work in groups of 3s 5s or 7s

[mjk2287]

Thanks for the quick replies!

We are going to separate the boys later this week and try that for a month. Is it ok to give Keenan a nest and some materials so he can build a nest? Would that make a possible reintroduction harder if we did (aggression wise)?

We would like to get more birds at some point too. Either a third male or keep them separated and get them each a female. We’re admittedly a bit apprehensive adding more zebras at this point. Another thing we though of was possibly getting a pair of societys at some point to hopefully balance things out. I’ve seen conflicting stories of zebras and societys getting along. Is it possible the addition would calm things? Maybe go with 3 society’s and our 2 boys? Is there the possibility of mating between zebras and societys?

Again thank you for the responses!

[Fraza]

mjk2287 no don’t worry about the mating of society’s and zebras it can happen but very very rare you have to near enough force it

And yeah that’s the best idea I love society’s its what I started out with and I used to have 4 society’s with 2 zebras and that worked well

The society’s where 3 boys and one female and the zebras where Male and female

[tex]

I also have two male zebras in a relatively small cage with a single feeder...they never bicker and get along great, they are really great chums and love to preen each other

[mjk2287]

So we separated the boys last night. We moved Keenan to the new cage. They are at the same height, cages touching each other with a perch in each cage at the same height so they can sit by each other but can’t touch. They were calling back and forth last night but nothing too crazy. Now today when I got home from work it was very bizarre behavior. Keenan was going absolutely crazy! He was making a VERY loud shrill almost like a whine of a call and bouncing all over the side of the cage that faces Maynard. He was calling so much it sounded like his voice was going out! He would hop back and forth on the perch then fly very hard against the side of the cage almost slamming into it. When Maynard would fly to a lower perch, Keenan would follow in his cage and then fly up and down from high to low perch very fast. I’ve heard of this as mating behavior but I don’t get why he would do that for Maynard? Maynard seems pretty calm but spends 90% of his time on the perch next to Keenan. Is there such a thing as separation anxiety? I’m assuming this is normal when birds are first separated?? I must say, these little guys are full of surprises!