Hi Tamara,
I would separate the birds because you do not know anything about this escaped budgie. Any time you introduce a new bird to a current pet, the new bird should be quarantined in a different room for 30-45 days, and then the birds should be in cages side by side in order to get used to each other. The introduction should be gradual and can involve only having them together for a short time each day, until you can tell if they are compatible. However, since the new budgie was flying loose, there are other issues to consider. My first concern is disease and parasites. When a pet bird gets loose, he is exposed to the diseases and parasites that wild birds carry. There are also a couple of viruses that parakeets/budgies can carry, without showing symptoms, but that can be passed on to another budgie and make it sick. At this point, both birds should really be check for external parasites and the escaped budgie should be checked for internal parasites. I don’t think the two have been together for long enough for Kiwi to have picked up any internal parasites, but the Vet can best advise you. It is not routine to check for parasites in pet birds, so you need to let the Vet know that the budgie was found loose outdoors and you don’t know how long he may have been loose. While giving your bird some natural sunlight can be good, it can also come with risks, which include possibly being exposed to wild birds. But predators are also a concern, so if you do continue to hang his cage outside, you should be watching him at all times to keep wild birds away from his cage and to prevent an attack from a predator. Anything from hawks, snakes, rats, and raccoons to domestic pets can be a risk to a pet bird in a cage.
Once you are sure the new bird is healthy, you can decide about caging them together. If Kiwi is tame, then I would not cage them together. When birds share a cage, even if they are the same sex, they will tend to form a bond and lose interest in people. You mentioned that Kiwi is an English Budgie. The English Budgies tend to be more gentle than the American budgies. Even though the American budgies are much smaller, they can really bully the more laid back English budgie. It doesn’t sound like these two got off to a good start, so it’s possible they are not compatible. And again, you know nothing about this bird as far as its age and whether it ever had a companion or mate. If you still decide to try to introduce them, then follow the slow introduction I described above, and closely supervise them once they are together, to make sure they are getting along and Kiwi isn’t getting bullied.
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
