do they always love each other?

[Lags]

hi,

i have two ringnecks, one a female lutino (Puddy) is about 2 years old, and a male blue (Babu) is one year who doesn't have his ring yet, but we have had him DNA tested as a male.So these two live in seperate cages in our living room, and are both hand tame and social with people. The thing is they don"t seem to be so social with each other. The female is deffinatley the Bully, and whenever SHE feels like, they can sit side by side, but this is not often. Even though he spends most of his time on her cage, and she is quit tolerant of him, as soon as he comes near her she attcks him. He quickly runs away, and she doesn't really persue him.

But the female seems to be "in love" with my wife. She assumes the mating position when my wife gets up close to her and starts clucking, latteing my wife pat her all over, as if she is hypnotised (this is unusual for Puddy). When Babu does his little dance to Puddy, she is either not intersted or chases him away. Obviously this is going to make breeding the pair difficult.

So my Question is : Is Puddy (the female) not "in love" with Babu (the male) because she is in love with my wife instead? I am not very familiar with bird breeding so please forgive me if this sounds like a rediculos question. At the end of the day we would love to have two birds who would just get along, and breeding them would be the icing on the cake!

[ellieelectrons]

Hi Lags

I only know the answers to some of your questions... so I'll tell you what I know and let others fill in the gaps.

She assumes the mating position when my wife gets up close to her and starts clucking, latteing my wife pat her all over, as if she is hypnotised (this is unusual for Puddy)

Our female IRN Janey exhibits this behaviour to both myself and my husband but she still shows a little interest in our male IRN Charlie. When she is in the mood, she lets him preen her (well it sort of looks like agressive preening) and she bites his feet and he will try to stand on her head. Charlie is almost 1 year old and Janey is just over 2 years old... so I think that this time next year they will probably mate... but right now, they seem to know they should be doing something but can't quite figure it out. I haven't seen it often but I have seen Janey on the odd occasion assume the mating position and cluck at Charlie.

... so I guess what I am saying is that it is possible for your IRN to exhibit this kind of behaviour to your wife and also to your male IRN. That isn't a guarantee that it will of course... but it is possible.

Maybe someone else can help you some more.

Good luck & best wishes.

Ellie.