When the ladies grow up

[clayman]

Hi all again,

I have another question that has been nagging at the back of my head.

As my info says, I have two females-siblings. The older one will celebrate her first "hatchday" in a couple of weeks. What I have been wondering is when the girls eventually grow up and their hormones fire up, how likely is it that they will still be able to coexist in my home without trying to chase each other away or hurt each other at the earliest opportunity and me having to find each one of them a partner.

I know that this is a highly hypothetical question that is hard to answer, but maybe there is someone among you that has gone through such a development and has learned a thing or two along the way.

As usual, thank you all in advance for your replies.

 

[SailBoat]

The other side of the first onset of their hormone rush is like one of those Star Wars saying: The Future is so hard to predict, so filled with emotions the Future is! Or something like that!

Anyone that can say with certainty what life will be like for these girls is either lying or is total disconnected from reality.

At this point, the more interactive you are with them, the more Socialized they are, the more you defined boundaries, the happier everyone will likely be. Letting your Ladies control their lives, the greater the likelihood they will do a poor job of it! This will assure you that no one will be happy.

Hi all again,

I have another question that has been nagging at the back of my head.

As my info says, I have two females-siblings. The older one will celebrate her first "hatchday" in a couple of weeks. What I have been wondering is when the girls eventually grow up and their hormones fire up, how likely is it that they will still be able to coexist in my home without trying to chase each other away or hurt each other at the earliest opportunity and me having to find each one of them a partner.

I know that this is a highly hypothetical question that is hard to answer, but maybe there is someone among you that has gone through such a development and has learned a thing or two along the way.

As usual, thank you all in advance for your replies.

 

[clayman]

Thank you, SailBoat. I felt it was not such a good idea to ask this. I certainly try to set some boundaries that are acceptable to all, but I need to work more on the socializing aspect.

Hopefully, when the time comes, we will be able to make it work.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

It is amazing on what socialization can do for a parrot. From a very young age,I socialized Amy whenever possible. She met my friends,family,and strangers.
Sure there was times, ( and STILL have times,but very few) that she didn't WANT to met anyone.
In summer she goes with me everywhere. We go to her favorite place,the local ALLPETS store,where the people there know her quite well,and she'll step up to just about anyone. She loves seeing her birdie relatives. There is always and area with a half dozen or so green armed bee bees. As soon as she shes them her face lights up and she just explodes with enthusiasm,yelling out 'zon lingo..words ( HELLO!! HOW ARE YOU???) and the little bee bee's climb all over themselves to get as close to the glass enclosure as they can..heads bobbing,beakys knocking at the glass..its comical

Then theres Wal-Mart..riding on the handlebars...the donut shop..auto parts store..she'll get on the counter and pick up Jimmys pen and throw it on the floor...then look at him with a "Ya? whatcha gonna do about it?" look on her face..and Jimmy will play the game with her for a few minutes.

My doctor just loves her..."wheres Amy today?" he'll ask if I don't bring her in with me.
She'll sit on my shoulder as I look out my front door,and say "outside? in the car??" She KNOWS! At times I will say OK Amy,lets go for a ride. I swear she understands coz she will fluff up,round around her playtop and gibber gabber away..she just loves going places.

Take your girls out with you and show 'em what a great big beautiful world there is out there,they'll love you even more for it.


jim

 

[clayman]

That is the plan, AmyMyBlueFront. It's still mostly cold here these days, but I try to show them the outside any time I can. They are not used to all the things that happen outside so the few times I was able to take them out in a transport cage, they were sitting on the perch, completely silent and motionless. Even when I took them back home and opened the cage to let them out, they did not make a move for a couple more minutes. Even the treat I offered them went unnoticed until a minute or two later.

I think I may need to go a little more slowly with their desensitization.

 

[Kentuckienne]

I just read an article about it being a bad idea to adopt dog or cat litter mates...the gist was that they form a special bond with one another, and don't properly learn to socialize with other dogs or cats, or with their humans. Normally litter mates would be socialized by mom and learn to interact with others in the pack, but mates raised in isolation from others of their kind miss out on learning important clues. I did once adopt two brother kittens, and my sister has a pair of cats who are sisters, and they were/are certainly stranger than the others. So the suggestions to socialize them well are very good.

 

[clayman]

Thanks, Kentuckienne. This past weekend I spent at my parents' and the girls were there with me. On Sunday, we had my sister's boyfriend's family visiting for lunch, so I took the girls and had them meet all of the people present.

The older one seemed fine, she was flying from person to person and was generally quite curious, albeit a little vigilant, too. I had other people hand out treats to the girls to try to break barriers more easily and both girls were happy to take them, but the younger one never quite found the courage to come too, although she seemed like she was about to fly to us, too. She spent the time there either sitting on my shoulder, or watching from up high and a little farther away. None of them was aggressive or extremely fearful, though, which I consider a positive.

On a side note, though -- not being a very sociable person, I do not have many people visiting me. However, I hope to get the socializing thing going by taking them outside to see the world as soon as the weather gets better (it's almost winter again here these days, very cold).

 

[Birdman666]

Hi all again,

I have another question that has been nagging at the back of my head.

As my info says, I have two females-siblings. The older one will celebrate her first "hatchday" in a couple of weeks. What I have been wondering is when the girls eventually grow up and their hormones fire up, how likely is it that they will still be able to coexist in my home without trying to chase each other away or hurt each other at the earliest opportunity and me having to find each one of them a partner.

I know that this is a highly hypothetical question that is hard to answer, but maybe there is someone among you that has gone through such a development and has learned a thing or two along the way.

As usual, thank you all in advance for your replies.

It's usually the males that get territorially aggressive, number one, they are the ones who establish the nests...

With females it becomes more a favorite person/attention thing. He/She is my person, not yours...

If they are raised together, they will generally get along. I have three females loose in my house right now. Two of the three are hormonal... one is still to young. The birds themselves generally work it out, but if they don't step in and settle squabbles with the instigator getting the immediate time out...

It's worked for me... and at one point I had 8 zons including fosters, five of which were hormonal hot 3's that were rehomes and various levels of tame...

 

[Birdman666]

Territorial aggression in Amazons is often associated as much or more with the bird not getting out and just not getting handled enough...

The cage = that's my nest. It's all I have left in the world. It's my place of safety. It has my toys. Food magically appears in it, and if I loose that I have nothing and I am dead. SO I WILL DEFEND IT TO THE DEATH...

Getting them out on a playstand away from the cage, even if it's just something like a boing on a hanger in another room, and actually handling them every day... goes a long way towards stopping those behaviors before they ever start in the first place!!!

A lot of the "hormonal" behaviors I've seen have turned out to be just cage bound and/or overbonded birds...

 

[clayman]

Thank you for the insightful replies, Birdman666. My two girls do find themselves in quite a lot of clashes between each other. I used to consider that their thing, a part of growing up, but I do try to end their arguments now if they get too heated. Of course, it often ends with me taking the brunt of their fiery emotions and getting a few bites. It hurts a little but it's nothing too serious.

I let them out of their aviary every day for at least an hour or one and a half hours during the usual week. On weekends, they get about 2-3 hours of time outside their cage. I try to attend to them during that time but sometimes they are on their own, especially when I clean their aviary.

Speaking of time out, how do you suggest I go about that? I heard it's not generally a good idea to lock them up in their cage as they might end up hating it. I do my best to not do that if at all possible, but I have a few times come to the point where that seemed like the best option and when I let the offender out after a couple of minutes, she came out much calmer.

The girls have a play tree with their toys next to their aviary and a table with a playground of sorts where they are free to gnaw and chew anything lying on that table (usually wooden pieces of older toys that can no longer hold together). Still, they very much enjoy adventuring to spots they are not very welcome to perch on. Actually, the perching is not even half as bad as their gnawing of everything in the vicinity of that spot.