Introducing a caique

firefly

New member
Oct 1, 2014
2
0
USA
Parrots
Firefly (3-year-old male pied cockatiel)
Clementine (2-year-old female lutino cockatiel)
The first time I met a caique was in 2012 at a parrot expo. He was the funniest little character. Someone called caiques "the devil in the yellow pants" and I just fell in love. I felt a caique would one day make a wonderful additional to the family.

After two years, we are finally approaching the right time to expand our flock. The biggest concern has always been the current babies, our two cockatiels. They're fairly young and basically have run of the place. The caique would get his own cage and space, of course, but I do hope all three will be okay hanging out together during supervised play time. I don't have expectations for them to be BFFs if they don't want to, though. For those of you who have caiques and cockatiels (or other birds), have you run into any trouble with them getting along, especially if the other birds are a little smaller and physically weaker than a caique?

We will be very diligent about training and ensuring that everyone understands that bullying or aggression won't be tolerated, and will try to enforce positive, amicable behavior. When I first introduced our youngest tiel to the first one, there was some tension. Firefly wasn't used to sharing his spotlight and it took a bit of work for us to find the harmony we have now. I'm prepared for that, but I've never had two different parrot species share a home so I just wanted to hear about other people's experiences with this situation.

Thank you so much! I really appreciate your help!
 

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