Re-housing a separated pair

[mieu]

Hello all, first post here!

I have two zebras--a pair of males that were raised and housed together. I've had them for a couple of months, and they've of course been getting along great until last night when I discovered the bigger one chasing the smaller and beginning to pluck feathers from around his legs. I tried distracting them, but as soon as I saw a head feather go astray I separated them. I plan to purchase a larger cage, but I want to know how long I should wait before reintroducing them.

Both of their cages are in the same room, they can still see and hear one another, but the little one seems kinda beat. It's day two and he sits on a perch close to the front of the cage indifferently when I walk up. Usually they would startle a little bit, hop around and then settle--now he seems a little listless but snaps back after a few minutes. Hes very tiny, I have a feeling the other finch was denying him access to the food dish for maybe a day or so, I'd like to give him time to eat worry-free before I reintroduce them.

How long should I wait before trying to put them back together?

[lovemyfinch]

I would give him the time it takes to recoop. Poor little guy, they can sometimes get pretty nasty.
Once you see that he is back to his old self, you can start thinking about letting them live together again.

[L in Ontario]

How about giving them a week minimum to see how they like being apart? That should give the wee guy time to recoup too. Best wishes and welcome to the Finch Forum!!!

[mieu]

Thanks all!

I'm a bit of a hamster enthusiast--I keep my dwarves in pairs, but I know that if they need to be separated due to fighting its rare that they can be successfully reintroduced because they 'forget' one another and their territorial instincts start to kick in once the other hamsters scent becomes strange. I wasn't sure if keeping finches apart--even if they're close enough to communicate (they're beeping at one another behind me full blast right now)--would weaken their bond quickly and lead to more fighting if housed together. I know finches aren't hamsters, but I like to take precautions when dealing with pairs!

[ac12]

My guess is one of 2 ideas

#1 - The dominate bird might be in a breeding mood and wants the feathers from the other bird for a nest.

#2 - The other is that he is really picking on the other bird, and in that case you really need to separate them and you may not be able to put them back together.

I have to remove the plucked bird to a hospital/isolation cage to let it regrow the plucked feathers in peace. It may take a week or 2 or 3, depending on how plucked it is, and how the bird responds to the additional egg food to make feathers.
Give it LOT of egg food (to help feather growth) and put a heat lamp next to the cage 24x7. The little guy is under a lot of stress and needs TLC.
If you can get pedialite. Try give it that instead of water for a few days.

BTW I had a bird die from being excessively plucked, so this can be serious.

I have had mixed results putting them back together after the plucked bird has regrown its feathers.
Most of the time the pluckor will resume plucking the pluckee, and you end up with a plucked bird...again.

It could also be as they grow, they develop their own personality, and one just turned aggressive. I have had this happen, and I have not been able to get the bird to calm down, despite many times in solitary confinement. I finally decided when I have birds like that, they have a couple chances to settle down, then I ship them off to the bird shop. I don't have the time or space to rehabilitate an aggressive bird.

BTW, how big is the cage. Aggression can develop from being in a cage that is too small.

I have "some" success calming down aggression by putting the 2 birds in cages side by side. They can see each other but the aggressive one cannot get to the other bird. After about a month of this, the aggressor will want the company of another bird and when put together, they buddy up.
CAUTION, this is not 100%. I have had the aggressor immediately attack the other bird once I put them together. And others that started chasing after a few days, and they would chase intermittently.

[mieu]

Thanks, ac12.

I recently introduced a new 'toy' to their environment because I noticed them plucking at some paper towel I had lain at the bottom of the cage, I figured they needed something to satisfy their plucking instinct, so the toy I bought was basically a loosely-woven 'basket' of straw they could pluck at will. They tried to build a 'nest' in the corner of the cage by weaving bits of the straw through the bars, but it didn't hold up too well, of course its possible that now they're in a pecking mood, the larger one is going for the smaller one's down (he is only missing some white feathers from the base of his legs, but he did get plucked on his cheek, which is why i separated them )

I placed the smaller birds cage next to a regular lamp--what bulb should I use for a heat lamp? I have a spare pure-UVB heat lamp that I used temporarily for my boyfriends gecko when he was lacking calcium.

Their cage was almost certainly too small--I still had them in the 20x20 cage that they were given to me in (they were a housewarming gift from a friend whose friend breeds and rescues all kinds of birds). I am thinking of getting a cage with a divider in case things don't work out.

[ac12]

I agree, I think the basket triggered the breeding instinct in that bird. I have a male zebra that does that to his mate. He still had nestlings in the nest and he starts to pluck his mate for feathers for the nest. I had to remove him to keep the hen from being plucked. I had one hen whose back was plucked naked and her butt was half plucked. So this male is a known plucker, that I have to watch.

I use a standard 40 watt incandescent bulb or a 25 watt RED bulb that I leave on constantly. The red supposedly affects their day/night less than the white bulb.