Dead Bird

[oliver8]

I woke up this morning to find one of my lovebirds dead. I had 5 lovebirds in a large flight cage I had paper on the floor and they loved climbing under the paper to hide and sometimes they slept under the paper. When I went to their cage today one of them was dead and the head was mostly eaten. I can't beleive that birds would do that. We have had mice in the house before, I have not seen one in a while though. What else coulds have done this? I am just sick about it and I am going to be afraid to go to bed tonight for fear of it happening again.

Becky

[heidib]

Hi Becky

I am so sorry to hear of that.* That is so terrible.* I haven't been to the board for a couple of days so I didn't read about it til today. It's been a couple of days, are you other birds okay?

I haven't heard about anything like this happening to birds.* I know that my mother was a breeder of Siamse (?sp) cats and if there was something wrong with a kitten the mother would start eating the kitten.* I still remember back to when I was home and found the mother cat eating the kitten.* I was still in high school and I was totally mortified that something like that could happen.* ((Still turns my stomach))

I'm sorry I don't have any experience with this to help, I hope you can find out why this happened.* I feel that is the worst thing is not knowing why something happened.* You mentioned mice, do you think they could fit into the cage?* Then again mice can get just about any where.* Even though you haven't seen one in awhile maybe just to be on the safe side put out some traps just incase it could be one?

I hope someone here can help...keep us posted.

[imported_Jason]

5 birds = uneven pairs. I would suspect the other birds as the culprit. I would say he or she was the weakest of the flock. Have the other 4 birds paired up? if so, this being breeding season and all, might have been the cause. Birds tend to get more agressive during the breeding season. Just a thought.... sorry to hear about your loss. If you add any more birds, I would add in even numbers, and sexes if possible...

Jason

[oliver8]

The others are fine I think because I moved them into a different cage. The reason I had 5 in there was because they were the babies I raised in Jan or so. The were all of the same clutch. Would they still do that when they have always been together? I have alway put traps out for mice because of the seed and so that is thrown out of the cage. My husband thinks it might be a rat, he says they are known for eating the brains of mice when they catch them. They were in a cage that we made out of a built in book shelf. when I looked closer at the cage there is a hole chewed in the bottom wood so that something could enter. We are on an erradication plan now. We are redoing the arrangements for our cages and going through the who;e house trying to find where something could have gotten in to the house to begin with, this is a new house 4 years ago. We are putting out poison as well as rat traps.

Becky

[heidib]

I am glad to hear that the other's are okay.

"We are on an erradication plan now."

I know that feeling all to well.* It seems with being out in the country that we seem to be in the same mind set.* I came home from work the other day and my children had found a mouse.* I think it had gotten to some of the posion because it just wasn't acting right.* They wanted to show me and I was afraid they had set up a cage for it....thank goodness they hadn't.* My oldest had taken it outside.* It was still in the same spot he had put it.* My oldest was pretty proud of himself of getting it out of the house.* He knows the constant battle that is waged and even though the mouse is cute it's still the "enemy".* LOL's*

My youngest took the news the hardest I think when I told her the mouse was probably dieing and that was why it wasn't running around she didn't want to hear that, she insisted it just needed something to eat.* She had brought it out a carrot and put it next to it.* I didn't even want to try explaining to her that it might not be around to long when a hawk catches sight of it.*

;D One down....???* ??more to go.

It's funny our last house we had was 150 years old and it didn't have as much of a problem as our new house does.*

[imported_kim uk]

hi

I can tell you exactly what happened here...your babies have matured, chosed their partner and are behaving like adults, where they will establish dominance over other pairs/ single birds they live with. lovebirds are feisty critters, and one or more of the others will have killed it in a dominace fight. if you keep the remaining four together there will be more fights and deaths until there are only 2 left. separate the remaining 4 into twos to prevent this happening.