What happened?

[Fourmom77]

I just bought a 4 month old Blue and Gold, My Lady, not DNA'd, concerned that my 3 year old Military Big Guy, he is DNA'd, would have a bit of a rough time with the transition of adding another to the flock. I was all prepared. My Military was very bonded with me, he would upchuck for me and everything, when he started that behaviour it only responded with him being put down. Well to my surprise, Big guy loves her and will run from me! He always hangs out with her, they will eat from the same dish, lock the beaks together and he will even preen her! I need ideas on getting him back on track and hanging out again. We always do a morning snuggle and he has always let me touch and ruffle his head feathers, now, notta. It sucks and I want to get my bird back! Any ideas? This all started yesterday.

[Dave & Karen]

The whole problem is because of the new bird bonded with the one you already have. Do you have both birds in the same cage? or do you let them both out at the same time for long periods without your interaction?
Your bird will always prefer the company of another bird over you, no matter how well bonded he was, it's just their nature. Your bird most likely still loves you but he definitely prefers the other bird over you. The best way to fix this would be to keep the birds in separate cages, then if you let them out together, keep these outings short, better in this case to only bring one bird out at a time until the other bird forms a strong bond with you. With both birds bonded to you and not eachother, you should be able to let them out together and they'll want to hang out with eachother, but come to you for attention from time to time while they're out. birds can bond with other birds really fast so just a night or 2 in the same cage could cause the behavior you're experiencing, but if you can separate them (different cages, and maybe even different rooms) and minimize their time with eachother your military should come back around. you'll of course have to form a bond with the blue and gold so you'll need to manage your time with each bird so they both get as much time with you only and try to keep the amount of time equal as possible to prevent jealousy issues between the birds. Once you form a strong bond with the blue and gold, you shold be able to let them out again at the same time, just watch for jealousy and make sure they play nice with eachother and definitely give them equal attention when you're all 3 out in the same place at the same time.

Keeping multiple birds can be difficult at times because now you need to give each bird a certain amount of attention, but at the same time it can be hard to prevent the birds from bonding to where they like eachother better than you, or the other extreme where a bird gets jealous and will attack the other bird for "stealing you from them" and/or they can resent you for "cheating on them". They can also resent you if you separate them after they bonded to eachother, but they'll usually get over this as long as you treat them as nicely as possible during this process.

You may have your work cut out for you, but it's definitely fixable