Parrotlet compatibility question

[Lorenzini]

Hello,

I have a 1 1/2 year old male pacific parrotlet. I have recently rehomed an umbrella cockatoo I rescued, and was wanting to get a buddy for my parrotlet. However, I had some questions about ways to make a meeting the best as possible. Should I get a male to go with the male or should I get a female? How should I go about making sure they get along? What if they don't like each other? Those general questions..

Help would be greatly appreciated.

Loren

[Monica]

If you are interested in getting a second parrotlet, and not interested in breeding, you should go with another male. First and foremost, quarantine the new bird from your others, so this means a separate cages, toys, everything! And be sure to clean up between handling your birds. (which includes washing hands/body, changing clothes, shoes, etc).

If quarantine is impossible, having the new p-let in a cage in the same room as the other parrotlet, and slowly let them get to know eachother from a distance... You can let them out together to see how well they react. If they get along together, let them decide if they want to live together in the same cage or not.

[Lorenzini]

Thank you for your reply Monica. The only thing I was hoping for as far as a friend for my birdy goes, is for him to have a buddy he can play with. I can't have him out all of the time... I was planning on doing as you suggested, but I am worried about whether or not the birds will like each other, as my reasons for getting a friend were based around the fact that I can't spend as much time with my Parrotlet as I used to. I don't want to end up with 2 seperate birdies who don't like each other!

Any thoughts?

Loren

[Monica]

If you are to get another p-let, of course he may never be friends with your existing one, but they can still provide eachother visual/vocal enjoyment together, if not in a buddy type relationship. Birds can and do benefit from being around others even if the two or more birds dont get along!

If you are unsure of getting a second, you could always look into getting more toys, bird sitter dvd, maybe leaving the tv on the kids channel or animal planet/discovery channel, or maybe even a radio so he has some sort of other distraction beyond just whats inside his own cage.

[Lorenzini]

Well I have a Double Yellow Naped Amazon in the same room with him.

I guess what you are saying is there's no guarentee that they will be buds.

[Monica]

Exactly. I am currently caring for six tiels, one of which hates all the others... she even dislikes all the other birds too! Since sticking her with the tiel family, she does seem to be getting a little attached to them, however still remains stand-offish, or even "shoves" them out of her way. She just doesn't like the other tiels around her!

Although there is no guarantee that two birds of the same species will ever get along, more often than not, they normally do, especially since how parrots are flock creatures.