Ollie the Barraband Parrot

[Wendy40]

Some of you will know I already have a GCC called Ozzie and we bought a barraband to have in same room to keep Ozzie company. They are in separate cages.

We have a few issues that would like advise on.

Is there any dead certain why of us telling whether Ollie is a boy or girl Barraband? He was sold to us as a boy but we know it can be difficult to sex birds.

When we get Ozzie out of cage now and then he flies over to ollie's cage and they simply do not like each other and go to bite one another. Can this be overcome at all? We are worried that because we got Ozzie first he may be jealous of Ollie and eventually if this cannot be overcome we will have to rehome Ollie.

Also Ollie is only 4 months old having been born on 4 April. He is fine when we go over to his cage. He will not come out for love nor money. He will tolerate his beak being stroked now and then and obviously when it suits him.

Will Ollie every want to come out of his cage and be handled by us?

Thank you

[Wolf]

If Ollie is a male he will change colors when he molts and gains his adult feathers, if he doesn't then he will be a she. The only other way is through DNA testing.

Ollie is only trying to defend his home and this is perfectly natural behavior. Ozzie is the aggressor in this particular instance, but given sufficient time he will learn to leave Ollie's cage alone, or Ollie will start to ignore him. How long will this take? Who knows, your guess is as good as the next one. Will these two birds become friends? While it is possible, I really doubt it, their personalities are just much too different from each other, in my opinion. Ozzie is a much more aggressive bird than Ollie is, and it is very probable that the two of them will never be friends, but you are already aware of this . Ollie is an aviary bird and it is unlikely that he will ever be comfortable being out of his cage with Ozzie, who will most likely attack him. Both Pajarita and myself have tried to explain all of this to you, when you first got Ollie. It is also unlikely that Ollie will ever be comfortable with being handled as he is a much more nervous of a bird. It is because of this that he is classed as an aviary bird, which is a bird that you usually buy in pairs and place in a very large cage or aviary providing them room to fly about and admire them and their antics from a distance, rather than handling them out of the cage and one on one like you do with a companion bird like Ozzie.

It does not matter how much you want Ollie to be a companion bird, the fact is and will always be that he is an aviary bird and not a companion bird. This is not something that you, or I or even Ollie himself can ever change, it is his nature.