Can 6 different sized parrots live together?

[Bigbirdy]

Can 6 parrots, a male and female African grey, male and female conures, and male and female senegals get along living in one big cage if they were handfed together from 4 weeks old?

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum. No, they can't. You can keep them all in the same room living cage-free as long as:
1) they are kept at a strict solar schedule and with the right diet (because overly-hormonal birds are very aggressive)
2) the room is large enough and has enough perches in different parts of the room and separate feeding stations are set-up
3) and as long as you don't breed them - which might never happen with birds that were taken from their parents at such a young age as their sexual imprinting most likely does not happen that early for larger species (babies are usually taken from the nest after they are 8 weeks old for the medium species, the larger one need to stay longer)

[Bigbirdy]

Welcome to the forum. No, they can't. You can keep them all in the same room living cage-free as long as:
1) they are kept at a strict solar schedule and with the right diet (because overly-hormonal birds are very aggressive)
2) the room is large enough and has enough perches in different parts of the room and separate feeding stations are set-up
3) and as long as you don't breed them - which might never happen with birds that were taken from their parents at such a young age as their sexual imprinting most likely does not happen that early for larger species (babies are usually taken from the nest after they are 8 weeks old for the medium species, the larger one need to stay longer)

What if I section off half my bedroom and fill it with perches, toys, and 3 different sleeping cages, and leave their cage doors open so they can go in and out? There won't be any food in that area, only water, because I'll take them to a bigger outdoor aviary every morning so they can eat and get sunlight, then I'll bring them back to the sleep/play area at sunset. This way by the time they go back to my room all they'll want to do is sleep in their cages. I'd leave them all day in the big outdoor aviary but I'm afraid they'll make noise early in the morning.

Btw, I heard the best time to get a parrot is when they're half parent raised and half hand raised for 4-6 weeks. That way they won't have behavioral problems that lead them to thinking they're human, and they'll still be tame and can learn tricks like the hand raised parrots. Also, it should be less likely that they'll fight with other parrots who were raised with them together in a big space from a young age.

https://i.postimg.cc/RC6FNzKw/Screen-Sh ... -55-PM.png



Here is a guy who keeps hundreds of different species in the same aviary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjBWvGfN2Go

[Pajarita]

I don't know if we are using different meanings to the words or if I misunderstood but all hand-fed birds are raised by parents and by people so I don't understand what you mean by this:
"Btw, I heard the best time to get a parrot is when they're half parent raised and half hand raised for 4-6 weeks."
Usually, when you say 'half raised by parents and half raised by people' we are talking about co-parenting but this is not the case here as the babies were taken from the parents and, in co-parenting, the babies stay with the parents all the time. If that is what you mean, then, yes, it is the best method and, yes, these are the best adjusted birds versus parent-raise AND hand-fed but, again, the co-parented babies live with the parents and are just taken out of the nest to hand-feed a couple of times a day and, when they are older, handle frequently by their human.

As to the age breeders take them from their parents - well, it depends on the species because the smaller ones are out and pretty much on their own in three months or so while the large ones depend on their parents for up to 9 months.

The aviary that you are using as comparison is not ONE aviary, it's a huge complex with separate aviaries, its own hospital, etc. And, in all honesty, I seriously doubt this experiment will have a happy ending for these birds or that we know everything that happens there (most likely, there are hurt and even dead birds all the time). I realize that the man thinks he is doing the right thing but he is not. Birds imprinted to humans don't do well without a human of their own - it's the way they are.

As to whether you can section off half your bedroom, well, that depends on how large your bedroom is. Normal bedrooms are not that roomy... I have only four birds in an entire bedroom and I still think the space is not big enough for all of them but if this space will be only used for sleeping cages, then it should be OK. But you can't have just three cages because you can't house birds that are not mate-bonded together and you can't leave them without food or water - even during the night. Only sexually mature pairs that are already bonded. Just because you raise 6 babies at the same time, it does not mean these babies will bond with each other. Babies need parents, not mates. And hand-rasing six babies is a VERY labor intensive full time job even when you know exactly what your are doing because, by the time you finish hand-feeding the last one, you will only have time to clean everything and start all over again. Handfeeding takes a lot of time because you can't feed them too fast or you can end up with sour crop (and you need to keep the food at a good and constant temperature -again, sour crop- so you will need to make more than one batch of food at every feeding). Also, hand-fed birds cannot be kept outside all day long by themselves. Hand-feeding a baby bird makes it imprint to humans - which is great for us because they think we are family but it's also a double-edge sword because once you create this bond, you need to fulfill it ALL THE TIME. What I am trying to say is that once you trick a bird into imprinting to a human, you cannot take away the human constant presence in their lives without negative consequences - especially while they are still babies! Once the birds are adults (meaning sexually mature - and this takes years, literally) if and when they mate-bond to another bird, you can start 'weaning' them of the constant human presence (this is what I do with my birds) but, until then, they need to be where there is people all the time. But even if they mate-bond and did not need one-on-one all the time, I still would not recommend putting them in an outdoor aviary without supervision... Parrots get stolen all the time, they get hurt, they get sick, they fight among themselves, they get taken or killed by predators etc. so you need to watch them. I knew somebody who had made a very nice indoor aviary in his home for his parrots. The aviary was built so it had two windows (for natural light) which were left open (they had metal mesh on them) during the good weather for air circulation and, one day, when he came back, he found all his parrots dead. The neighbor's dogs had pushed the metal mesh on one of the windows open, got inside the house and killed all the birds. I let all my birds out to fly (yes, all together at the same time but it takes me a couple of years to get each of them to accept one another) and I don't even close the door to the bathroom when I need to use it so I can hear and see what they are doing.

Please do not take this the wrong way because it's not my intention to offend you or criticize you but it seems to me that your raising 6 babies of three different species plan is too ambitious for somebody who does not have the infrastructure or experience to do this. Raising a single baby bird is HARD even for somebody with experience in handfeeding and weaning (which is another story!). We are talking about being virtually under house arrest for, at least, a couple of months and spending your entire day with the babies which means no life of your own at all! Forget about sleeping in, forget about going out, forget about doing anything but feeding, cleaning, comforting, feeding, cleaning, comforting all day long, day after day, week after week. It means weighing and keeping a record of their weights, it means knowing enough so you can identify symptoms and treat accordingly, it means keeping the room where they are kept at a temperature and humidity level that is uncomfortable for humans, etc. It's HARD and it requires a lot of knowledge and even more commitment. Parrots are highly altricial animals who depend on their parents for months before they can manage on their own. I mean, people think puppies are hard but baby parrots are 500 times harder!