Dear Parrot Lovers, I’m looking for some advice. My ringneck really doesn’t like my conure and is aggressive to him whenever he gets close.
Names to avoid confusion:
Birdy=Green Cheeked Conure
Baby=Indian Ringneck
We got our ringneck on May 27th from a bird store (now I realized that you can't go to a bird store and "just look and play with the birds"). We named her Baby since she was just a baby bird. She just turned 4 months old (we never had her sexed, but she has large feet and shorter tail, more like an adult female, so for now we think she is a girl).
A little back story on our conure, hopefully it will help you understand the situation a little more. We got our conure on Nov. 2nd 2016. My husband's coworker found him (we never had him sexed, just assumed it’s a male) in her yard. She kept him for a week while putting up flyers in the neighbourhood and trying to find the owner. Finally nobody claimed him and she couldn't keep him any longer. She has four kids and a lot of smokers in her house. Since I always wanted a bird, my husband took him home for me and we named him Birdy. Man, was I in for a surprise. I had 20 canaries, 2 finches and a quail in my life, I loved all of them so much, but a parrot is so different. And unfortunately Birdy picked my husband as his favorite person very quickly. For the first 2 or 3 months, he would furiously attack my finger or hand or any of my body part as soon as they got close to him, and if I walk away from him, he would fly on me and bite my arms, neck and ears until they bleed. I took some advice online and my vet, and tried to improve my relationship with Birdy by totally covering myself up and taking him everywhere I go in the house. Everything I do I have him with me. Gradually, he warmed up to me. He went from hating my finger with uncontrollable rage all the time to letting me give him a head scratch, to asking for head scratches from me all the time. He would fly to me and greet me as soon as I got back. Although my husband is still his favorite person and he still bites me, but now he wouldn't leave my side, he loves sitting on my hand when I'm at my computer and we can do that all day, he is with me even when I'm sitting on the toilet. And to be honest, I really enjoy having him with me all the time and I love him sooooo much.
Birdy is free to walk and fly around in our one-bedroom apartment. He is never in his cage. We got him the Prevue parrot cage on wheels with the food top, and we make sure it is not overly big and intimidating for him, but he also has a lot of space to move around and play. He still gets really anxious and screams every time we put him in the cage, even when it's bed time, which means he doesn't get a lot of sleep, and this has started since the first day we got him. So we let him free in the whole apartment. He can go anywhere he wants and everywhere is his territory. Even when we go to work, he is free in the house all day. We make sure there is nothing dangerous for him and luckily, he never gets into any trouble.
We were worried that he would be aggressive to any new bird we get, so I took some advice online and got a young bird who is also bigger than he is, which is our baby ringneck. To our surprise, he is very good with Baby. He is not jealous in any way. He just wants his food and us. As long as he can sit with us, get head scratches and get his food, he is a happy little thing. He is curious about Baby and wants to make friends, sometimes he would even follow Baby around a little bit, but every time he gets close to Baby, Baby gets furious, bites and attacks him. But even when Baby is attacking, he is not scared. He doesn't move away, and neither would he attack Baby back, he acts like nothing happened. We make sure we are there every time they are in the same room and Birdy never got hurt, but this makes me worry a lot. Yesterday, we were all in the living room, Baby saw me giving Birdy a head scratch, she screamed. I didn't go to her when she was screaming, and she flew over and attacked Birdy. Birdy was in no way intimidated, neither was he hurt because we took Baby away immediately, he was still asking for his head scratches. I did looked up a lot of information online and tried to work on both of them a lot, such as having them in the same room, close enough to each other but both occupied by an activity they like so that they, especially Baby would get used to the other one's presence. It didn't seem to work very much, and it certainly didn't help when Birdy took food out of Baby's mouth once. They sometimes would fight for food even when there is plenty for both of them in a mutual area (some advice I got to get them use to each other). In their mind, they just want food and our attention. Especially Birdy, he is used to taking what he wants, he thinks Baby is just another bird and means no harm, even she attacks him and is so much bigger than he is. What a bold little boy.
What is worse is that they would both fly on my shoulder all the time. I personally don’t like putting them in their cages, let alone both of them hate their cage, even after I tried so many toys with them. And I’m not a fan of wing clipping either. I don’t want to take away Birdy’s time with me, he is so sweet, funny and happy when he is with me, but I also want to make sure Baby has a lot of attention, which seems to be impossible since she attacks Birdy so easily. My husband would help out by taking one of them once in awhile, but he is sooo busy and plus, he is not the bird person in the family, I am. He got all the birds for me….
So my question is, is there any hope that they would ever get along or even go as far as liking each other? I heard ringnecks, especially female ringnecks can be really aggressive at times, even kill their mate, which scares me so much. I would really appreciate some advice from bird lovers here. Thanks a lot! (by the way, just when I was writing this, Birdy went to steal food inside Baby’s cage, Baby was just too focused on the toy with treats in there, thank God…)