I have two cockatiels, a parakeet, and a red belly, each of whom has his own cage. Their wings aren’t clipped and they are allowed to fly in the room with supervision.

None of the four birds like one another, but it’s hard to have enough time to bring each one out separately each day for sufficient play time. Of course, the red belly can’t be trusted with any of them, and the parakeet is fearless. He enjoys chasing the cockatiels. What should I do to give each bird as much attention as possible when they are so incompatible?

-- Sharon Jones, sharonjones@nc.rr.com

I read with interest your column about parrots mourning and companionship with other parrots. I agree with your premise that parrots are social creatures and need companionship. I have two Meyers and a hawkhead, all around two years old. All three birds are people-friendly and well socialized. They can be seen at http://www.geocities.com/dcx11/meyers.html.

I truly don't know how multi-bird households function! Neither my partner nor myself over-indulge these birds. We both work during the day (but may come home for lunch) and do not spend every waking moment with them - specially because we didn't want overbonding. What is the proportion of birds which get along with each other (or at least don't try to kill each other every chance they get)? Fifty percent? I find it hard to believe that we lucked into getting three pint-sized flying pitbulls! As they approach breeding age, I fear this will get worse. Anything we can do, short of designing miniature muzzles?

-- Dan Chiu, dcx11@yahoo.com

I HAVE OFTEN HEARD many people who say birds are like potato chips - you can’t have just one! Frequently, however, when choosing a new companion for our existing pets, we look for a bird that we want - not necessarily the one that would be right for the bird.

If you want your cockatiel to have a friend, you’ll be much more successful adding a second cockatiel than a macaw! However, even then, as your experiences illustrate, even same-species pairings don't always work out.

Many people say you shouldn’t mix species from different parts of the world. However, I have seen many happy homes with Indonesian cockatoos, African greys, and South American Amazons. For another example, I have often heard that maroon-bellied conures are nippy and more aggressive than their green-cheek cousins. However, I had a very sweet maroon-bellied conure whose best friend was a little green budgie. The conure was very docile with her. So, the choices you make, in my opinion, should be based primarily on size and individual bird temperaments, not necessarily on species. Look at the individual when assessing compatibility, just like with people.

Now, what do you do if you already have a mixed flock that just won't get along? To answer this I turned to a good friend and excellent student (and teacher) of behavior, Susan Friedman. Susan is a professor of psychology and also works a lot with companion bird behavior. She has been a guest lecturer for the past two years at Steve Martin’s bird-training workshops. She also teaches her own on-line course in applied behavior analysis for companion parrot owners.

This year, when she was in town for the workshop, Susan talked about the process she was using to teach her group of parrots to exist as a flock. She was even teaching them to preen each other, which was something they had never done.

She says the first step was to teach all of her birds to step onto her hand without fail every time she asked them to. She needed to know that no matter what the situation was, if she asked them to step up, they would.

Next, she helped the birds become accustomed to closer contact by taking them into the shower together. They were already comfortable with bathing in the shower, so it was a good environment in which to train them. They were near one another, but all had their own shower perches to keep them separate.

Once all the birds were happily bathing together, it was time to move on to step three, and this is where the step-up training became important. Susan put one bird on her shoulder and another in her lap. For her birds, Susan herself is the reward. Their desire to be with her is more reinforcing than a sunflower seed. So their reward for good behavior is more cuddle time. As long as they both birds sat quietly in Susan's lap with no bickering, they continued to get scratched.

Susan then moved the bird on her lap to her hand, closer to the one on her shoulder. From there, she gradually moved them closer to each other, all the while scratching them on the head, as long as there was no fighting. At the first sign of bickering, the aggressor went immediately to a perch, losing his opportunity to earn the reinforcement, which was spending time with his favorite person.

This is where the concept of a "time out" comes into play. There is a right way and a wrong way to use a time out with a bird. There should be no fanfare, no shouting, wild gesturing, or dramatically walking across the room to put the bird in its cage. The bird should simply be set down immediately. If a perch isn’t available, then the floor, a counter, a chair back, a table will all work.

Time outs should last no longer than 10 to 30 seconds, tops. Then you should give the bird another opportunity to succeed, praising and rewarding any success. Eventually, your birds should learn that aggression toward each other only results in losing their play time with their favorite human (or whatever their reward is).

All that being said, some birds simply will never get along. My bare-eye cockatoo has seen many birds come and go because for years I took in birds with behavior problems, corrected them the best I could, and found them new homes. Of all the birds that came and went, he only found one he liked - an older wild-caught male umbrella cockatoo who was tolerant of my bird's hyperactive personality.

At Natural Encounters, we never force an animal to do something that it doesn’t want to do, and you should look at your bird's ability to socialize the same way. Sometimes, it just isn't possible to change how a bird feels about another one, and I can't say I blame them. When it comes to getting along well with others, we humans aren’t always good at it, either!

ParrotChronicles.com

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