Ask Lafeber

Female and male ringneck parrots

Hi there im abit worried about my parrots because they both behaving weirdly.  I have a blue irn and green the blue 1 is a male cuz he has the ring but the green 1 i brought when she/he was 3months old i was told it was a male but seeing the behaviour between them shows me its actually a female and i was wondering if i could sell the female and keep the male as they only known eachother for like 2 weeks. I dont wanna see the green one and see the blue one upset and down all the time. Just wanna know would it be alright for me to sell the green parrot.

Hi Bilal,

Am I understanding correctly that you have only had the green IRN for two weeks, so it is just over 3 months old now? At that age, the bird would not know how to behave towards a mature male – a juvenile male or female is likely to exhibit submissive behavior at this age. Regardless, since it could be a female, it is much too young to be with a mature male. It is never a good idea to put a juvenile of the opposite sex with a mature bird. It can make a female try to lay eggs too young, or if it is a young male, the mature bird may become aggressive because the young bird is not ready to breed yet.

If your goal is to breed birds, then you need to find a female that is the same age or slightly older than your male. If you buy a younger bird, you would need to keep them separate until the female is at least three years old. Five is probably a better age to start breeding IRN. They may be physically ready before then, but they are still immature and are more likely to eat eggs, not incubate properly, or kill or ignore any chicks.

So the short answer is yes, you can find a new home for the young bird. Their age difference is too much at this point and they would not be bonded as a pair yet anyway.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda