Hello from Malta

[Wolf]

Well, I must say that you have high hopes! I guess that this statement is meant as a mixed bag of thoughts. partly humor and partly sarcastic but mostly just honestly and without any judgements. Why? Well I reckon that if you are familiar with the Jurassic park movies, then you will understand when I say that each of these species are like the velociraptors in many ways and especially with other birds including those of their own species. This is part of the humor and the sarcasm would be more of an implied " I would be surprised if you did not already know this about them as you strike me as someone who has done some research into these birds. The rest of it does include both of these other two elements but is mostly that while you may be able to pull it off, the real question would be is it worth it, and that depends entirely on you. So please don't be offended by my way of putting things because I never intend them to be a bad thing only helpful and sometimes a bit humorous, but sometimes things get lost when all one has is the printed word.

I really can't say that I have an answer to this question, I guess it is more like a non answer. I don't think that anyone can give you a real answer to the question of whether or not to try to add any of these species to your in house companion birds. Each of these species on their own are usually a delight, however the parrotlet is probably the one with the most attitude and the most bites as it appears to be a part of how they communicate with each other. They are all high energy type birds that love to play and all of them tend to have short attention spans and will change how and what they are playing with often. You really have to be careful with all of then so as to not get them too excited as that tends to lead to biting and is probably responsible for most of the bites received from any of these birds. They are all territorial and defensive of anything that they deem to be theirs which includes all of the wonderful toys that you give them, the toys that you play with, such as your keyboard and yourself, these are just a little of all of the things that they are likely to claim as their very own. They are all very touchy when it comes to new birds being added into the mix as they tend to not play well with other species of birds or even birds of the same species that they did not grow up with. They all have reputations of even killing their own mates if everything is not just right. But despite this it does not mean that it can't be done.

I do not have any caiques or lorikeets and my information about them is gleaned from researching these birds and talking to other people online that do have these species of birds. I do have a pair of parrotlets and even though they were bonding as mates quite well the male turned on the female after several months of happily living together. I have had to separate them to protect my female parrotlet from the male and this has caused me to have to do additional research and it was in talking to some breeders online that I finally began to understand what the cause of this sudden change was and work out how to deal with it.

I have all of my birds living in the same room, although they do have separate cages except for the budgies. I try to let them all out together every day, but have to be extremely careful in letting my parrotlets out with the others because of their natures. My Grey wants to be out and spend a lot of her time on me, but does like to explore and she is very loyal to me. She goes out of her way to defend her rights to me and will attack any bird that she can reach if that bird is on me or in her current territory. Other than this she is pretty docile and will normally just ignore other birds. My Senegal is another bird that wants to be on me most of the time and although it took some time she realizes that she is not big and strong enough to win against my Grey. This does nothing to deter her from occupying her favorite perch.. me! But instead of standing her ground and fighting I have managed to convince her to fly and come back in a few minutes, but she is not afraid of the Grey or any other living creature and will fight at the slightest provocation. I have also managed to convince her that the parrotlet being on me is not really a threat to her or her rights to be with and on me. It took a lot of work but I have also convince my female parrotlet that she should not keep trying to attack either my Senegal or my Grey when they are with me as well. I still must always be on guard when the parrotlet is out because just as these other two birds she knows no fear and will attack either of them at the slightest new noise or actual provocation and she will go and land on their cages if she is out and they are not and this could quickly and easily cause her to lose a leg at the least. So yes, it can be done but you will always have to be on your toes and never take anything for granted with them or you will have a disaster. Having enough space for them to get away from each other and separate areas for them to perch or play is an absolute must have. You will still need to remain on high alert as they will always bend the boundries of what is safe or not. They will get close together and you need to thing ahead or you will not be able to keep them all safe and prevent injuries.

All of these thing are why I can't honestly answer you on this, other than to say that it can be done, but it may not be worth the risks involved.