male and female cockatiel

Question
Hello there, we would very much appreciate your expert advice in this situation. Approx 2 years ago we purchased a female Lutino cockatiel. Although not tame she is an affectionate little thing. We decided to get her a mate and purchased a normal Grey about 12 months ago. Whilst they fought a little at first they eventually took to each other. They have been mating for quite a while and she has layed her first clutch of eggs. They were both excellent at sitting on the eggs and there really was no aggression. Well after a while they stopped sitting on the eggs so we candelled them and found they were not fertile (which we understand is normally the case with first eggs). After about 3 days of abandoning the eggs we removed them and both the male and female showed no problems with this. We have removed the nest box also to give her a "break"! That was about 2 weeks ago now. The problem now is that the male has become extremely loud (whistling all day)! whereas before it was just in the mornings generally. The main worry is that he has become VERY aggressive to our poor female, actually drawing blood on her cheek. It appears very one sided, he wants her to preen him which she does willingly but if she lowers her head he pecks her hard!! He hates strangers coming in and it starts him shrieking again. Could you please advise us. He has never been the nicest of birds but is becoming a bit of a pain. If we removed him from the cage would she become depressed???

Answer
Please remove him. It's far better for her to possibly become depressed than to be killed (and this does happen on occassion).

Put them in cages next to each other and you shouldn't have any real separation anxiety.  Give the female a chance to heal and recover.

There's little that can be done about a 'tiel's whistling.  It's their nature.

This link is very good for more information:

http://www.cockatiels.org/articles/breeding/breedingStarting.html