FINCHforum

Hi everyone,

I have a problem that is making me sad...my pair of Gouldians all of a sudden aren't getting along...what do i do? They seemed fine together since I have had them since march, then, the past week, something has gone wrong...the female wants nothing to do with the male, and actually takes a aggressive posture toward the male...she will actually 'nip' at him, poking at him with her beak until he get down from the perch...

Has anyone seen this before? waht do i do, i fear for the male's health....

help.

Nick

Sometimes my gouldians will do this over a perch, food, etc.....

If the cage is large enough and there is plenty of room you could just watch them for a while. It may stop. If it doesn't.... then you will have to seperate them for a while. Sometimes doing this will make things better when you put them back together. Kind of like a time out......

It could be that he is ready to breed and she isn't. Is her beak black?

I had a female doing the same thing. The male wanted to court her and she was just bossy. I always worry the other way around...when the female runs due to be harassed by the male.
Most of the time the male retreats and lets her have his way. Though mine didn't actually pluck him, just lowered her body, raised and lowered her wings in a threat position and opened beak at him and chased.
That was 3 weeks ago. They did breed and when the 2 went into the nest I have never heard such loud noises ever from my gouldians while breeding...I believe it was her they sat tight on eggs and every once in a while I would see her do the threat chase thing to her mate. Poor guy he would hop all over the place trying to get out of her way.
Today I did a nest check with sticking my hand into the back of the box and felt eggs and a wiggler the nest box is an outside mount and it was too high for me to peek in so I am not sure how many. This evening when I checked on everyone before retiring she came out of the nest like a bat out of hell and chase him around the cage 3 times...he was hot footing it. I thought maybe she was being overprotective or fearful he would toss the baby but within a couple of minutes she flew to the bottom of the cage to eat on some spray millet and he went into the nest for a while. Then she went up and got in too...... I guess she was fine with him.
I call her Miss Bossy
Maybe you just have a female that will 'Hen Peck' her male also. That saying had to come from somewhere