[SHARE] how do u decide to get a second parrot

[liz]

I searched for Myrtle (BF Amazon) and Maggie (cockatiel) to be companions to Rambo (DYH Amazon) and Tommy the cockatiel who had his mate stolen by a widower Shadow.

Myrtle had many problems from being dirty to being scared of everything. (a Grey had been tormenting her and the atmosphere was awful.) Myrtle fell in love with Rambo immediately. She was only a year old and had much to learn so Rambo taught her. She called "hello" to him with him responding many time when he had enough he asked her "do you have a problem"?) Rambo did not care if she shared his home but did not really interact with her. He was better off without her but I did not know this until she was here. They are not really friends but do interact as they would in a flock. They will eat together using a "da da" sound back and forth. They call to each other from separate rooms and I believe Rambo would miss her if she was gone. But they do not play together and there are times that Myrtle aggravates him.

I had two pair of cockatiels. When Shadow's Sweetie died I search for another mate. Maggie was a 4 year old breeder bird when I got her. She was not socialized like the others so was not able to bond with me. Shadow did not approve and stole Tammy from Tommy instead. Maggie did not want anything to do with either male but adjusted to a sort of friendship to Tammy. I searched for two more cockatiels one for poor Tommy and another that Maggie would accept. It has been more than a year and many more rescued cockatiels. Tommy has not chosen one. Maggie did not want anything to do with the males but one of the other rescues fell in love with her and wore her down and now she allows him to perch with her. I think I even saw them mating. Things worked out for Maggie but with 14 cockatiels, Tommy has still not accepted another mate.

Searching for a mate for Tommy turned into finding cockatiels who needed help. Most came as singles. There was also a mated pair and a family of four. Tommy is not as happy as when he had Tammy but he is at least has friends in the flock.

Looking back Myrtle and Maggie were not good choices but I don't regret giving them another chance in my home. Myrtle is tightly bonded to me and Maggie has come around enough to tweet to me when I am in their room.

I really don't know about you getting another bird. I can only tell you about my birds and their friends.

[Wolf]

There are many things to consider when thinking about getting a second bird. The first thing would be deciding first of all if you really want a second bird and if you are ready to care for two birds and why you want the second bird. By this, I mean do you want the second bird because you want it for yourself or are you looking for a companion or mate for your current bird, A companion bird for either yourself or for your bird could be of a different species of parrot and would have its own cage, a mate for you current bird would have to be of the appropriate age in relation to the first bird and of the same species and of the opposite sex. You would still need to have a second cage for it, but would be hoping that they could live together in one cage that is large enough for both of them.

Now if you do get a second bird as a mate for the first bird there is no way of knowing if it will work out as you want it to as either one of them could reject the other as a mate, but they could still be companions to each other and this in itself is very beneficial as they have someone to be with, even in separate cages to talk to when you can't be there for them, so it would still improve their lives a lot and help to relieve a lot of stress for them.

You speak of the bonding between you and your bird and I think that you, like many other people with birds misunderstand the nature of the bonds that birds form. I could be wrong about that, but just in case, please bear with me and I will share my view on the bonds that birds form with others human or otherwise.

The first bond that a bird forms is the parent/ child bond and it is a dependency type of bond that lasts from the time the bird is hatched until it goes through puberty. This bond is extremely important because it forms the basis for the other bonds and because the newly hatched parrot is born totally helpless and it must depend on its parents to teach it everything that it needs to know beginning with the simple acts of eating and drinking. In the wild this bird learns from its parents exclusively, unless it has siblings, everything including where to find food, what foods to eat and how to eat. It learns how to raise its own young from its parents. In short everything it needs to know up until it goes through puberty and goes to find its own mate it learns from its parent.

This natural process is cut short and eliminated when the young bird is ripped away from its parents to imprint on humans. This bird still needs this bond and it is transferred to its human and the human becomes in effect the birds parent and it is their responsibility to teach the young bird everything including what foods to eat and how to get along in its human environment up until the bird goes through puberty.

While the bird is going through the process of growing up it starts developing the flock bond, this would normally begin with its siblings and then after the bird fledges and while still with its parents it begins to learn flock behaviors and this flock bond gets a boost. Then when the bird leaves its parents at puberty it joins in with the other young adults and learns the rest of the things it needs to know to fully become a functional member of the flock and the flock bond matures. This would be the most natural time to get a second bird that the bird could have as a mate as this is when it happens in its normal lifecycle

The last bond is the mate bond and this search for a suitable mate begins when the bird leaves it parents at puberty. When two birds find each other and think that they are a match they start forming this mate bond and this bond could last a lifetime. This is the same bond that the bird forms with its special human and it is the very bond that people are looking for when they get a bird.

At the same time that this is the bond that we look for with our birds it is the one that we have the most problems with due to our interpretations of how it is supposed to be. Our birds are intelligent enough to know that we are not birds, but they accepts us as such because they were imprinted on us and grew up with us and have to depend on us. Some of the will bond close enough that they will perform their mating behaviors including attempting to have sex with us. Most of the time they will accept a mate if it is introduced soon enough, but sometimes they will not and none of really understand fully why this is so. Some of them will not accept another bird as a mate and again we have no idea as to why this is other than it is related to the formation of this bond and the individual personality of the bird. The only thing that we can really do is to provide a possible mate for them and to encourage them to be a bit more independent in their behaviors from the time that we get them. And this may or may not make it easier for them to accept another bird as a mate.

That is pretty much everything that I have learned so far about the bonds that our birds form and how these bonds work in the lives of our birds. I do hope that this is not only interesting but helpful for you and your bird.

[Pajarita]

The other important things to take into consideration is how long you've had your bird, what species it belongs to, and how stable your life is. I do not recommend anybody getting a second bird before they've had the first one for a number of years. Birds change a lot as they mature and young birds tend to be quite easy while, as they get older, they start going through changes so you want to make sure the situation is as stable as it can be before you take in another one because two birds might not only end up NOT been easier than one or even twice as work as one but much more than that (but this depends on the species, also because some are easier than others). Also, we all have the best of intentions when we first get a bird and we all start off with lots and lots of enthusiasm but, human nature and life been what it is, novelty wears off, situations change and we find ourselves not been able to provide enough company for one bird much less two.

[seagoatdeb]

i also think that you need to have some experience for a few years before adding another. At the time i brought my Red Belly home 17 years ago, I already had cockateils, conures, budgies, finches, and Senegals and they were already getting along fine but Gaugan was fine with them all in the biginning but turned out to have the biggest problem when she hit breeding age and even decided that one particular cockatiel needed to be gone. So even once you have experience things come up when you add parrots so you need to do it slowly as you get more experience.

My daughter has a Meyers a Conure and a Senegal and right now is having problems with the Senegal attacking the other two. The Meyers, even though the Senegal has bit his toe and it bled, is still determined to land on her cage when out and my daughter has to carefully monitor time out right now. It is wonderfull to take in and rescue parrots but you really need to slowly gain experience.

[Pajarita]

Yes, indeed, experience helps but only so far as that things don't catch you by surprise because it's not as if experience will eliminate the problems because it won't. My cardinals were fighting so much and so hard that they were pulling bunches of feathers from each other and it had never happened before so I was completely baffled until I remembered that I had put fake plants 'hiding' their nest in the past so I went and bought new ones, hanged them from the top of the cage all around the nest and problem solved. On the other hand, sometimes things are not so easy to fix. Pookey TAG suddenly started hiding under a cage so thinking she was not feeling well although I couldn't see any symptoms, I put her in a cage, covered the cage on three sides so the heating pad would heat the entire cage evenly and gave her antibiotics for two weeks. She was fine so I let her out - and she went back to hiding! I was puzzled and very worried by the whole thing and was going to take her to the vet for completely bloodwork when I realized that the problem was that she had become scared of Freddy Too. Now, Freddy has been in the birdroom for over two years now and they had never had a problem before but there was a problem now because he had taken to pursuing her and even climbing to her cage (which made her scream) so I put Pookey back in the cage and covered all three sides until she calmed down (ten days or so) and made it a point to tell Freddy to "GO HOME!" every time I heard her scream and found him hanging from the bars of her cage. Once I got him to leave her more or less alone, I covered only 2.5 sides for two weeks or so, then 2 sides, etc. Right now, she only has the back of the cage against the wall and a towel hanging from one of the back corners so there is a very small part of a second wall covered but she is still not ready to come out because I let her stay out the other day after I had finished in the birdroom and she ended up going to ground after a couple of hours (I peeped in the birdroom every half an hour or so to make sure everything was OK) so more time is needed.

So, as you can see, experience or no experience, things change and birds that got along, no longer do for one reason or another -in this case it was breeding season, I think, because both grays and toos are short day breeders.

[seagoatdeb]

Breeding season is usually when it will happen all right. They can also hold grudges or view another parrot as a threat. My daughter's rehomed Senegal made it into the conures cage when her hubby left it open and the conure is bonded to him so not a threat to the Senegal that way since she is bonded to my daughter. However her last home had two bonded conures who had intimidated her so that may have been why she did it. She cornered him and bit his eye and it made an emergency trip to the vet necessary. He is fine and it healed rapidly, but she must have been waiting for the opportunity.

[Pajarita]

Glad to hear he is OK! Must have been quite a fright... And, yes, they do 'target' a bird they don't like - even if the poor bird has never done anything to them. Naida BFA 'has it in' for poor Sunny Sun Conure who is the SWEETEST thing ever and, given half a chance, she would go to her cage just to bother her. And the weird thing is that Naida is also incredibly mild mannered (never bites or even nips and steps up with the delicacy of a geisha!) and has never shown any antipathy to any other bird so I can't figure out what is it about Sunny that she dislikes so much.

[seagoatdeb]

Gaugan decided she hated cockateils when she hit breeding age....I could see why... she would show them she wanted space but cockateils couldn't seem to get it...The budgie got it and she tolerated him well. The Senegal knew when to give her space after the first two fights, the conures learned to give her space. The cockateils just didn't get it and she got madder and madder at them. I got allergic to the cockatiel dust anyway, but I miss them still. Especially my Lutino Cezanne, the sweetest cockatiel ever.

I am glad too my daughters conure didn't get hurt badly. he is very good natured for a male conure, a very good natured parrot. He did not provoke her....she has been rehomed a lot and the last home she was neglected so she may have even more issues. At least the Meyers and her are evenly matched, he is even a larger parrot than her.

I am very happy that Gaugan is learning to tolerate Sunny so well. He is so hyper and so full of energy that i think she just doesnt want to bother unless he really bugs her. He gets so determined to do things where he can be closer to any "flock" member. He has earned his rights through sheer determination. once in a while Gaugan shows him she gets to pick where she will go and he must leave and after a little beaking between them he does leave, She has not harmed him at all. But i know to never just "trust" must always keep an eye on them.

[Pajarita]

Isis Redbelly has also done VERY well with the other parrots. Zoey Senegal had a few jealousy issues with her at the beginning but they now spend almost all their out-of-cage time hanging out together - they perch on the top of the cardinals cage, fly up and down the stairs together, etc. And, sometimes, Sweetpea Senegal goes with them. Just like a little flock!

[seagoatdeb]

I think mostly Pois can learn to get along because they have a lot of similaritys and are more evenly matched in size and fighting styles. it is ususally a diffferent parrot that they decide they dont like and when they are not evenly matched that is mostly where a serious problem will occur.

My daughters conure has a habit of jumping on another birds back. her baby Meyers gets irritated but they have been raised together as babies so he just gets grumpy and gets the conure off him. The adult pois wont tolerate that, but the Conure has learned to just hang with his Meyers friend or Sunny my Meyers and he stays away from the adult Pois. He was affected by the Senegals attack on him. But now that everyone is aware they are making sure it will not happen again.