cockatiels

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 16 Aug 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

jade	16 Aug 2002
anyone know alot about cockatiels? i could use some assistance with mine. i have three. two i got together and they are siblings. brother and sister. serenity and peace. then we got clarity......a female. well, clarity keeps getting majorly injured,......serenity have NO tails feathers at all.....and peace is doing wonderfully. so i'm guessing here that the only bird that if fully intact is the bully. well, today, she finally showed us that she is a he. how do i know? posture (the heart shaped wing stance) and he has begun singing :D now, what should i do to stop this aggression? any suggestions from people that know lots would be great. i don't want my rare whitefaced cockatiel (very expensive) to be injured any further! at the present time, i have peace in a cage alone, with serenity and clarity healing in the big cage. in light, hoping for wisdom, jade

Pollux	16 Aug 2002
And Peace is the name of the aggressive bully! Oximoronic! *LOL* I think you should keep him by his own, as he is now. Now I wonder, since you did not know it was a HE till today, are you sure the other two are females?

Emily	16 Aug 2002
Hi Jade, I know they can live a long time - my mom's cockatiel is around 22 years old, he can also be a bit nasty in his cage but he's fine out of it. Could be your male bird is terratorial and doesn't like the females in what he regards as his cage or as Pollux mentioned maybe one of the others is male too. I think male and females get along fine in big cages or averies but perhaps the cage just wasn't big enough.

jade	17 Aug 2002
i guess i wasn't clear. serenity and peace are both males. clarity is a female. at the petstores that i visit on a regular basis, yes i'm an addict regarding pets :D they suggested that i get another female to balance them out. so............purity is now a new member of our group. i have only introduced purity to peace..........to allow them to bond. they are doing wonderfully! and of course, my petstore said that i can return purity if peace doesn't bond with her. :D my hubby and i created a new HUGE cage today for the cockatiels. we moved serenity and clarity into that cage and peace and purity are in the other cage (which is also really big) so..........i'll give this a try. :D love and light, jade ps oh and purity is a pied :D (which is mostly yellow with grey outlines on her feathers :D)

VGimlet	17 Aug 2002
I just ran over and checked with my MIL; she raised cockatiels, lovebirds and a few other small birds for several years. (And then there were the pygmy hedgehogs...but that's another subject...) She said if you want to keep cockatiels together females usually work best, or two females and male. She felt there was a chance two males might "run" a single female until she was injured and in bad shape. Adding another female as well as getting a larger cage might be fine, but she warned that sometimes both males see one female as the more desirable of the two... She also said males sometimes get agressive toward each other, especially as they become mature (but, like anything else, not always :D). But, "You never know with those crazy birds, everything could be just fine after they get used to each other." A common misconception is that they won't breed if you don't put out a nest box. Anyone whose ever found an egg or two in the food bowl will tell you that's not true, LOL. If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail or PM me, she's right next door.

The cockatiels thread was originally posted on 16 Aug 2002 in the Chat board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Chat, or read more archived threads.