Mona wrote:For those of you with multiple birds, how do you manage flock compatability?
I'm lucky, my birds get along reasonably well and can come out together.
When I got my lovebird, I was still living at my parents and she got put in the same room as my parents' two lovebirds; they all had their own cages but were aloud out at the same time and played together. She was immediately placed in a flock environment (other than her family) and this might have helped make her who she is now.
I was also living at my parents' when I got Shade. My parents took her brother so they had each other to play with (they both had their own cages). Shade and Nemo were placed in my parents' birdroom for larger birds. At the time, I *believe* there were two African Greys and one Sulfur crested cockatoo (that flock has since grown in numbers). So her, like Piper, was used to seeing other birds in her entourage early on, even though I didn't allow her to interact one-on-one with my mom's bigger birds.
When I moved into my apartment, I was a little afraid of how the transition would go since even though they lived in the same house, Shade and Piper rarely saw each other as they were on totally different floors in the house. To my surprise (and delight), things went really well, Shade wanting to be friends early on (trying to get her head groomed by Piper). To this day, Shade will protect Piper if any of the other birds tries to go after her.
Then came Joey. While I was pondering getting him or not, my biggest fear was that I would undo the nice balance I had between Piper and Shade. My boyfriend said we should get him and we did and things did go well. Shade occasionally would play with him, but most of the time they did their own thing. There wasn't any sign of discord between Joey and Piper either.
Petey was the next to join. This didn't go as well as the other previous integrations. She was older and set in her ways and didn't appear to have been social with other birds much prior to coming here. It's been hard at times, but she's slowly seems to be coming around and wanting to be a member of the flock rather than being alone in her corner. I'm hoping things will continue to go this way.
Zuri came to live with us last January. Her and Shade seem to be becoming really good friends. She likes flying after Joey but not to attack. It seems to be in good fun. Because when he stops being chicken and flying away and stays put and she lands next to him, she either just stays there or flies away to do something else. Which really makes me think she wants to play.
Mona wrote:Do you think that same species or same continent species do better together than multiple species? What species of birds do you think do well together and what species do you think are incompatible?
This is an interesting question. I want to say that yes, same continent birds might do better together. Based on what I've seen here, it seems to be true. My mom has birds from African (3 Greys, one Sennie and a Meyer's) and birds from Australia/Indonesia (namely 4 cockatoos) living in the same room and there seems to be some clashes between some of them at times. Two of the Greys definitively don't seem to be big fans of some of the cockatoos.