Ask Lafeber

My Cockatiel is chasing my new Cockatiel

I adopted a new cockatiel (Ronnie) today who is already completely tame and used to humans but has never been introduced to any other birds, except from a macaw which hated him, I brought my bird home and wanted to introduce him to my cockatiel (Rio) so I placed their cages next to eachother, when we got home Ronnie was just sitting in his cage minding his business and Rio was very interested in him bare in mind these are both males. They were sort of kissing in between the cage bars? They are living in separate cages at the moment but I was hoping one day they could be in a nice big cage together. Anyway, eventually Rio climbed inside the cage that Ronnie was in and they were sort of nibbling at eachother, and biting each others tails, they were both in the carrier at the time so I took them both out the cage and Rio just wanted to be friends with Ronnie and was just following every where he went, wherever he flew and Ronnie seems to not want anything to with him as he just flies away, I don’t know if it’s because he’s never been introduced to birds or if I’ve let them both out of the cage together to quickly or obviously because it’s the first day and he’s not used to his surroundings just yet? It says online that if an older bird who is sexually mature chases another it can mean aggressive behaviour forming in the future. (We think) Rio is around 11 months old as we bought him when he was around 6 months old, and Ronnie is 7 months old, Rio isn’t sexually mature so I don’t know whether to think of it if aggressive behaviour or Rio just wants to interact with Ronnie? Please help!

Hi Brooke,

The first thing to keep in mind is that if you want both birds to remain tame pets, you never want to let them share a cage. When you cage two birds together, even if they are the same sex, they will tend to form a mate bond and lose interest in human interaction. It’s OK for them to interact outside of the cages, as long as no serious fighting takes place. But as pets, you want them to like you, not each other. Adult birds do not seek out another bird as a friend, they seek a mate. The interaction you described is OK, but it can be stressful for a new bird to have to deal with a new home and another bird. Generally a quarantine period should take place to make sure the new bird doesn’t have any diseases. I would let each bird have his space and when they are out, if this passive aggressive chasing continues, put one bird back and get them out at separate times. Not all birds will get along and with tame birds, a new bird is often only viewed as a rival for their human’s attention.

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda