My house is your house...or not?

[Stasia]

I have a little situation I would love some opinions on....

We have a cockatiel (Marley) who we've had for some time and a new little green cheek conure (Oliver) whom we've had just about 2 months. The birds are NOT the best of friends. They will share a human :), one being on one shoulder and one on the other, but if they get too close, they start hissing and "darting" their beaks at each other so we have to seperate them.

Lately, Marley has had an obession with getting into Oliver's cage! Marley is flighted but Oliver is not. Usually Marley will do this when Oliver is out of his cage on a playstand or on one of us, and I just run over and get him out. But lately he has been so bold as to fly INTO the cage while Oliver is in or on his cage with the door open! So far we've had nobody get hurt because I'm always close by when the cages are open so I run over and pull him out, but I do not understand this behavior!

Is Marley trying to be territorial of Oliver's cage? How should I handle this?? Do you ever let both birds just play on each cages? I mean, should I let Marely be and then in turn let Oliver play in Marley's cage? I am just bewildered by this since I've never had one of my birds show this interest in the other bird's cage (one who is not a friend anyways). Thanks for any advice/opinions/experiences! :)

Stasia

[LissaKokoKiwiKaseySam]

hmm...

you are fortunate that your birds are roughly the same size, and squabbling is about equally matched. How does Ollie feel when Marley invades? Does it bother him? You need to make a decision based upon how they act with each other..who knows, they could become best friends!

My advice would be to see how they are on neutral territory...I don't see it as being a 'huge' deal if they go visiting in each others cages...size wise there is a potential for bickering, but they're a pretty even match.


I have a macaw who routinely climbs to my cockatoo's cage and proceeds to let her out. Kiwi does NOT appreciate the gesture..so when she manages to get OUT of the Cage, I just put her on Koko's cage..Koko is perfectly content to hang out on ANY cage he sees fit, as is Kiwi, but she won't go on her own...

[dislater]

My birds are not friends and They like their cages to themselves. I would make sure that neither bird can invade the other's cage, whether that means keeping the cage door closed, clipping wings or only one bird out at a time. I think one bird invading another's territory is inviting injury. di

[kp_in_scott]

I think I would just clip Marley's wing feathers until she gets over the curiousity of Oliver's cage. Then maybe she ill forget about by the time her feathers grow back out.

[Stasia]

Thanks for the responses :)

I have been thinking of clipping Marley's wings, so I am going to give that some more thought since I think it would help the problem. Thanks again!

Stasia

[SweetPea]

lol.. sounds like my lovie.. they will fly to my conures cage and beat him up... lol

they only thing i'm afraid of is that they fly to my mACAW"S cage too and try to beat her up...lol