Expert: Marie Charon - 12/1/2009

Question
hi, i got a budgie when it was about 5 months oldd. i had him seperate from my dove for about 4 months and then i thought it woudl be a good idea to put it with my dove who is about 7 years old. my dove if female and im guessing so is my budgie because of the white'sh blue cere. when i first put them together they were fine and just played but now im noticing that my budgie will jump on my dove and peck at her head or it will just sit there. also sometimes it wont let my dove sit on any of the perches and just at the bottom of the cage. my dove now has almost no feathers on the top of her head. what is going on ?

Answer
Budgies tend to become more bird aggressive as they mature. Also budgies, cute and little as they are tend to be really big bullies of other birds. You'd be surprised to find out that budgies will try to bully some of the biggest parrots around.

It is just their nature, it is how budgies protect their flocks territory in the wild. You'll have to remove him.