Male Java Obsessed with His Nest Box

[avicella]

My two male Java Sparrows live in cages on a rack on my desk, and I let them out to play from time to time during the day. From a YouTube video I got the idea of buying them next boxes as "vacation homes" when they come out of their cages.

The nest box at the lower left here is what I got them:



One of the Javas likes his box and plops down in the door and snoozes or sings. But he'll come out and perch on my finger if I present it to him.

The other little guy, however, when he goes in his nest box, he stays there, and he becomes possessed, insane. I cannot get him to come out. He gapes and jabs at me violently if my hand gets anywhere near the door, and the only way I can get him out is to let him get a good grip on my finger with his beak and then pull my finger back. Once out of the nest box, he's fine again, a little pussycat. It's a Jekyll and Hyde thing.

I'm probably fooling around with some deep-seated instinctive behavior patterns. Is this something to worry about. I'd hate to take away the nest boxes that they seem to love so much.

[Justin-2-finches]

I have never had Java's before but it doesn't sound like any thing to worry about to me. Apart from your sore finger .

[monotwine]

From what you have said it sounds like you have two tame Java's.

So working from that info I can only give you my experience with another bird, cockatiel, not a finch.

By providing them with a nest you are walking a fine line between instinct and your want for them to be domesticated tame pets. His biting is him defending his chosen nest site. Very normal. If I inspect nests and my finches don't budge, I expect to get a nip. They are only asserting themselves / taking a dominant role, but you want him to be submissive and tame at the same time. Ultimately you are confusing his little brain.

If you continue to let him "play" at being a normal bird, you may eventually loose his tameness / cause fights between the two boys. Unfortuantely instinct will override his trained behaviour of being tame.
If you would like to keep him tame, perhaps rather give him an interesting perch to fly to with interesting foods / fruit for him to play with instead as that is more normal within his abnormal tame state?

My tame bird became incredibly "wild" and eventually I had to leave him to be a breeding bird which was a shame. He became very aggitated and bit really sore and well I did not like the amount of blood he drew nor the angry state he stayed in if I tried to be his "friend" as before.