Advice on getting a second cockatiel

Hello,
Lately I have been getting busy during the day and my cockatiel is spending more time alone and I have been thinking about getting another cockatiel. I know that I would already need to buy a bigger cage and quarantine the new bird. What I am unsure about is how my cockatiel would react to another bird.

She is a five year old female who has been an only bird since we got her when she was young (unsure of age but was weaned) and is quite attached to me. I do not know how she would react and I do not know anyone with a cockatiel so that i could introduce the two to see how they react.

If I got another cockatiel it would mainly be to provide company to my female cockatiel (I do not want to breed them) but I would also like friendly bird. One of the things that I am also worried about is that my female cockatiel is unable to fly properly due to a muscle injury to her wing.

Any advice about getting another bird would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hi there, welcome to the forum!

It is difficult to predict how any bird will get on with a new one - noone knows they try it.

I'm glad you're aware of quarantine!

The way I would personally look at it is this. You will need to have them in seperate cages for more than likely weeks, if not months. They may hate eachother, they may love eachother, but the fixure of two cages may well be permanant. Of course, after quarantine, they will be able to be in the same room in their seperate cages while you work which will give some company but instead of having less time with one bird, you will be having less time with two. Two cages to clean, two sets of dishes to fill, two sets of out of cage time if they don't get on, spending time training the new arrival.....

I hope you see what I'm trying to say here, I'm not brilliant at explaining what I mean sometimes!

I just want you to consider that a new bird can't just be company for your current bird, it's another member of the family who has the same and initially, greater, needs.

Many members work full time and have happy, healthy birds. Work is a fact of life. If you're worried then why not try leaving the radio on, playing classical music or as I do when it is too cold for my bird to come into the shop, pick a TV channel where you know there will be no bad language lol?

I hope that helped!

I hope you