Mums being cruel to her baby

[Mel7610]

Watching my new arrival zebra's going about their morning flight excersize i witnessed the baby wanting to get back into the nest and then mum came up grabbed her by the scruff of neck and threw her backwards and then chased about the aviary.What is this about? Mum keeps her away from the others too,and it's only this one baby she cruel to????

[vettepilot_6]

Sounds like mum wants to go to nest again....How many nesting sites do you have for each pair of birds? ...rule of thumb should be 2 or more for every pair..

[Mel7610]

i thought that may be the case her wanting to nest again.I only have the one nest and one pair in the aviary.

[djb78]

Agree mum probably wants to breed chasing young away from nest, just like humans some young just don't know when to leave. Adding more nests +2 would be a good start, if young keep going back to their old nest parents can/will build a new nest. If new nests are put in and a young is still hounded could be that 1/both parents see the young as compation of breeding, this should lead to the removal of young.