Fighting Love Birds

Question
I have three love birds, one violet, one white faced and one cinmion. I got them all at the same time and have just started with birds. As I also got two tiels'. Anyway, the white faced and the violet love birds started bitting the cinmion one to the point I had to remove it from the cage. the cinmion started to bleed from the back of it's neck. It has healed now, but has a bump there. I have two cages, each being 30 inches long, 18 inches deep and 36 inchess high. At first I put the hurt bird in with the tiels', (as the tiels are in the other cage) but the love bid once healed started fighting with the tiels', so I'v had to get another cage and that love bird is in a cage by it's self. Why is it that I can't put that bird in the cage with the other love birds, why do they pick on it til it bleeds? And why does it pick on the tiels' if I put it in with them?

Answer
Hi again, Bernard.   Thank you for the nice rating.  I never rely on what people tell me when it comes to the sex of birds they are selling (some people will tell you anything to sell a bird).  Lovebirds have to be DNA sexed (can't tell male from female just by looking) to tell male from female (experienced breeders can sometimes tell sex by behavior, but this isn't 100% accurate).  You can do this DNA sexing yourself by ordering a DNA sexing kit from any of several different websites on the internet (instructions come with the kit).  The cheapest lab I've found and that I use is Avian Biotech International and it costs I believe $19.50 each test (the sexing kit is free, but it costs to have the lab process the test).  Their web address is http://www.avianbiotech.com  They can respond by E-Mail usually within 5 days after you submit the sample.  The test involves taking a blood sample from a clipped toenail (or a blood feather I believe they can use now) and placing a drop or 2 on the test card...not difficult, but you might be a bit nervous the first time you do this.  

From experience, I never put more than 1 pair of lovebirds in the same cage...they will always fight if you have an odd number of males/females together, and I always had problems when I put more than 1 pair together in the same cage.  Female lovebirds can be ruthless, especially when paired up with a male or when they have eggs or babies, so be aware!  I had a female lovebird on eggs fly out of the cage door when I was feeding one day and chase me clear across the room just to bite me (and she was tame when it wasn't breeding season)!  Tiels are nice parrots, but I don't mix them with other species either, except parakeets, because they are so nice.  And then parakeets usually pick on the tiels!  Birds that get along as younsters may not get along once they are adults and the breeding instinct kicks in.  Usually when a parrot likes women (or men) in particular, that means they were raised/owned by that particular human sex person (if a female human handfed them as babies, they take more to female humans).  

If you need some advice once you have the test kit, let me know.  I've sexed many, many parrots over the years.

Chrys