Ask Lafeber

Cockatiels fighting

Hi. I have a 20 year old cockatiel whose cage mate died of cancer about 6 years ago. He was losing his mind when the other bird did not come back from the vet. Got another bird from a breeder (initially thought was female, is male), did the whole quarantine and introduction thing. Everything seemed to be OK. The younger one got along with the older one, but still enjoyed human attention.
To be clear, I am OK with them being bonded to one another and was hoping that would happen since I work a lot. Both allow me to handle them and I would take them out of the cage at the same time. But recently, the older cockatiel has been very overprotective of the younger one. He will not leave him alone and follows him around the cage and outside. This is to the point where the younger one lashes out and is becoming more aggressive to the other and will attack him. The fighting suddenly became nonstop. I have them in separate cages now, and the younger one pays no attention to the older one, and the older one is pacing the cage and is anxious. If I take out the younger bird, he gets more agitated, and if I take him out he only goes to the other cage and the younger bird becomes angry and aggressive. The last thing I want to do is rehome any of my birds, and I fear that separating the older one permanently from the other one is only going to make him more anxious. This will have been the second time he lost his bond with a bird because “I took them away”. Is there a way to retrain?

Hi,

You can’t make two birds get along. Unfortunately it sounds like the younger bird doesn’t like the older one. Probably this is due to the age difference. If this is a young bird under 2, it will most likely get worse when the younger bird gets hormonal. The younger bird may prefer you, so he doesn’t need companionship from the older bird. You can try not handling the bird and see if he turns to the older bird for companionship. It’s a complicated situation. And dynamics between two birds can be complicated and can change. In the wild, they choose their own mates. It’s highly unlikely that two male cockatiels would spend time together, especially with such a big age difference. When paired at a young age, same sex cockatiels can form a close bond. But here you have a young bird that is still developing physically and emotionally if he is less than 2. And of course your old bird is set in his ways. Even with a male and female pair in captivity, they do not always bond. In some cases a pair has eggs or chicks, and then suddenly the male takes over the nest and decides he is done with the female. This behavior isn’t understood, but it is an example of how much the dynamics can change. All you can do is see if it gets better over time. But the most likely way this would happen is if you stop handling the younger bird and let him focus on the other bird as a companion.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda