Diamond Dove Attack

[jlazyh]

I am having a problem with my Diamond Doves and could not find a spot other than here to ask my questions, so please bear with me.
I have a pair of mated doves that have laid 2 eggs and both hatched with no problems. Both adults for the first 30 days have fed and taken care of the young by the book until the other day. The female laid another egg and suddenly turned on the 1 month old babies. Last night she attacked them so bad that she killed one of the young. I put her in a separate cage for several hours, but returned her to the main cage. She immediately went after the other baby. She is back in a cage by herself again and the male is doing fine with the baby. I removed the egg she laid. Has anyone had this problem and what should I do now?
thanks for any help or suggestions you can throw my way.

[Liz]

I've never had doves, but I think I can guess what is going on.

It is pretty common even for good parents to turn on their older babies when they want to raise another clutch. They switch over to nesting and see the older babies as intruders.

If you want to prevent them breeding again, I'd remove the nest as soon as all the young are flying and you've seen them eating on their own. That should keep the mom from getting too ambitious. If you do want to let the parents breed again, I'd take the babies out when they are old enough and put them in a different cage to keep them safe.

As for the current situation, I wouldn't put the mom back with the babies at all for awhile, even with no nest. Let her get calmed down a bit and then put her back with the male, and put the older baby somewhere else.

Well, that's my opinion... hope it helps, and I'm sorry you had to lose one of your babies!

[george]

Hi there!!

I've kept diamond doves on and off for years and I have to say, I've never heard of that happening before, I'm a bit puzzled about what advice to give to be honest! The only thing I can think of is that prehaps the cage isn't quite big enough for four birds. Most birds will be very defensive of their nests and if the cage was fairly small, it would be near impossible for the babies to stay out of mum's way. I've found diamond doves to be very panicky and they get stressed easily if they feel too confined, stress can lead to odd behavhiour too.

Now, I'm not trying to say you're not housing them adequately at all, but it may help to buy them a bigger cage?? Of course it could be any number of other things too. Like people, some birds are just a bit mean!! LOL! Sorry you lost one of your babies, that's never a nice thing to have happen

[mueb]

Hi there. I think Budgiebuddy has hit the nail on the head!! From what you've said I would think perhaps the parent birds are ready to hatch more babies again. When this happens in the birdy kingdom then the previous set of babies need to be out of the way. Even if they are still in the nest being fed they will be attacked as Mum wants to use the nest again for her next brood. We have many different types of bird here (used to have diamond doves but not nowadays). Diamonds are usually very prolific and you may find you get this problem quite often. Whenever you find she has laid an egg and still has chicks then you will need to remove them for their safety, otherwise don't let Mum go to nest again.