bad mother killed her young :(

[featherlove]

Hi everyone,
I just came to vent out my frustration about a female that decided to take her .. whatever it was.. out on her babies . My dad has a pair, that had four babies, and they had just started feathering up nicely.. when one morning he went down to feed them, and to his horror, two of the babies were on the floor, with big holes in their heads. He rang the vet, and the vet said to treat the head wounds with some betadine, every day and see how it goes. The little blue boy was quite weak, and we thought he was going to die, but he pulled through, and so did his little brother. phew! but we didnt know how this could of possibly happened. We thought perhaps they wondered into the wrong nestbox and met with an angry pair, as there was others with babies ( which is not usually ever a problem )
We weaned them, and i have the two , and they are fine.. problem averted. Or so we thought!
Dad had some rats break into the lovebird aviary, so we moved 15 lovebirds out, some had been eaten, and there was warm eggs.. in our hurry to try and beat the sun going down we put the warm eggs, with a female budgie, who also had two eggs of her own. We left them there with her as the lovebirds being moved to a different cage were quite upset and stressed, and we thought this would be the best chance. behold, the budgies two eggs and the love bird eggs x2, hatched!
The bubs were doing well and were undergoing checks often and all was fine until one morning ...
dad went down and discovered them, on the floor, completely mutilated.. heads pecked in, and all four DEAD! He looked around at all there birds, and there was this one female, covered in blood. not just a little bit.. he said she looked like an axe murderer.. very distressing to look at the bloody gorey mess, and this bird with blood on her hands.. err feathers.
sadly none of them survived. Whatever makes a bird do this? she is by herself in a cage on her own, and we really dont know what to do with her. Is it a viable option for her to lay eggs, as her eggs are fertile, then move the eggs under another female? shes an aviary bird, so shes really not going to make a good pet, and i would hate for anyone to have her anyways if shes going to be completely psychotic like that .. i would hate that experience to happen to anyone else..
any thoughts , discussion, or likewise experiences .. i am grateful for ..
thanks

[zena]

I'm not sure what makes birds destroy their eggs, or kill their own young- or in my case have my breeding female budgies' daughter try and kill two of the mothers babies Sometimes- if it's annother bird doing it with someone else's babies it can be jelously. But the birds that I've ever had that did what yours did I don't usually breed (I do give them about 2 clutches- but if they do it again I don't breed her/him again) It's not really something you want to see...

[featherlove]

hi zena, goodness, definitely not something i want to have happen .. These things happen though I guess, its part of the commitment to breeding, and being responsible pet owners etc and so forth. I would hate to think this is some kind of defective gene or something, but from what i have read there doesnt seem to be any fact based theory on that conclusion or why they do it. They are, afterall part of the animal kingdom, who knows what goes on in their little tiny heads ..

[avinet]

Aggression by a female budgie against another hen's chicks is one of the hazards of colony breeding budgies and why serious breeders will use breeding cabinets - one pair to a cabinet. I suspect it is mainly a territorial problem - the aggressive hen wants to use the nest box the other hen's chicks are in, but no doubt other reasons also come into play. It is much rarer for a hen to attack he one chicks, that is beyond some feather plucking. I have found that if this happens in a flock aviary then separating the problem hen out with her mate into a separate cage/cabinet will result in normal breeding behaviour. If she is attacking her own babies in a single pair setup then she is not for breeding and should be kept in a non-breeding aviary.

cheers,

Mike

[zena]

It was weird how it happened with these two babies because they were just about ready to come out the nest box either that day or the next... I did end up putting her and Skye in separate cages from the others (they hated each other...) and Skye became less aggressive after that- I don't think she liked being in a cage by herself...

[Laraine]

I have had the same problem in the past with babies that were fully feathered. It was very distressing.

As well a couple of years ago in my communal aviary I had several females sitting on eggs. I couldn't work out why when the babies
hatched they all died. I eventually worked out that it was one of my single females committing the murders. She cost me 12 babies which I
wasn't happy about at all. I now have her in another cage where she can't do any more damage.

[Laraine]

I have had the same problem in the past with babies that were fully feathered. It was very distressing.

As well a couple of years ago in my communal aviary I had several females sitting on eggs. I couldn't work out why when the babies
hatched they all died. I eventually worked out that it was one of my single females committing the murders. She cost me 12 babies which I
wasn't happy about at all. I now have her in another cage where she can't do any more damage.

[thebudgiebunch]

A few reason I know of that could explain this:

1) Big risk of coloney breeding is hens attacking others chicks wanting the box.
2) Mother attacks them to force them out of the nest to lay another clutch. this is why it's good to remove mum from 3-4 weeks by the youngest and dad continues feeding them.
3) There may have been something wrong with the chicks. One of my rescues was attacked in a similar way, only one in a nest of 5 attacked. The head healed well after continued treatment with honey, however it became apparent he suffered french moult.