Need advice on jealous and attacking indian ringneck!

We have had our, presumably male, IRN for over 3 and a half years. He was rescued from an dirty house that was overcrowded with many birds. When we rescued him we were told he was 6 months old. After all this time, he has yet to get his ring - making me believe he might in fact be a she. Regardless, we have never been able to hold him and he has always been very panicked and afraid of us. After many years of attempting to handle we are only able to get a few inches away when giving him treats. His cage has always been kept open and he has many options for perches. He has free reign to fly and it has never been an issue until recently.

We also have a sun conure in the same room. The two have been together for almost three years and neither have really cared for each other until lately. The sun conure is very friendly and has been handled since we got him as a baby. Every night the sun conure comes out of his cage and lays/plays with me on the couch and recently the IRN has been swooping down and trying to attack us.

Basically I am unsure what to do. I’m so afraid my ringneck is going to kill my conure. I feel bad changing their entire lives and leaving them locked up. (I admit we were very inexperienced bird owners when getting both birds and didn’t know much about both breeds until after owning them, but until now they seemed to live harmoniously in the same room.) I feel very sad for my ringneck because I he doesn’t want to be handled or bothered much and in return I feel like he feels ignored. We still try to interact with him as much as possible but still it is never as much attention as the sun conure gets. I feel one of the only options is getting my ringneck’s wings clipped, but I am so worried this will further make him feel isolated from us. Does anyone have any experience with this? Also is my ringneck swooping down and landing near me and the conure to get close and maybe it’s his attempt at wanting to be more involved or is it just a territorial thing???

I feel very inexperienced, even after these years, so any advice is greatly appreciated. We love both birds and want to make sure they are both loving their best lives with us.

What part of the world are you in? Irn Breeding season is upon us in the USA, likely ramping up the sexual hormones and leading your IRN to see your Conure as a mate. In the evenings before you settle down to snuggle, bribe your IRN into his cage with her favorite treat to prevent the attack.

Also, take steps to lower the breeding hormones in both birds with the steps outlined in the following article

http://www.silversageaviaries.com/handlinghormones/


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Sorry I don't have good advice for you. Welcome to the community, try reading different threads in different species you might come across things that apply to you.

Welcome to the community! I'm sorry these issues have popped-up, but as SilverSage mentioned, it may very well be hormonal...Or it could also be a territoriality thing...

***By the way, at around 4 years-old, if your IRN hasn't gotten it's ring yet, then she is a female for sure, not a he...So if she is hormonal right now, you need to make sure she has no access to anywhere small and dark, such as any type of boxes/nest-boxes, "Huts" like the "Snuggle Huts", tents, etc. in her cage, or that she can't get under furniture, or that she has nothing in her cage that could be seen as a "nest" or "nesting material", such as straw, bedding, wood chips, towels, blankets, or any pieces of fabric, as all of this will increase her hormonal behavior and could very well lead to her laying infertile eggs, which is not good for her health...I'd make sure she also has constant access to a Cuddlebone and a Mineral Block both inside of her cage, so that if she does happen to start laying infertile eggs, her Calcium and Phosphorous levels will be high enough that her body won't start leeching it from her bones...And they also tend to keep their beaks filed/non-pointed as well...

****I totally understand how you feel about "isolating" your IRN, however your very first priority HAD TO BE keeping your Sun Conure safe, as you're correct that your IRN could very easily injure her very badly or kill her. This is a situation that commonly results in lost toes, lost eyes, lost beaks (this happens all the time and it's horrible because usually too much of the beak is lost to grow back, and they have a permanent hole in their faces), etc. And honestly your Sun Conure's beak is also large enough that he/she could also badly injure the IRN; even though the IRN is the "aggressor" in this situation, even the most snuggly, cuddly, tame bird will become extremely aggressive and violent when being attacked, and it's usually a situation that results in BOTH BIRDS being seriously injured or killed. So as SilverSage already suggested, what you need to do is put the IRN back in her cage when you settle-in on the couch for "snuggle-time"
with the Sun Conure, at least for right now, to protect them BOTH from each other. That being said, you want to make EQUAL out-of-cage-time for both birds, so if your routine is to snuggle/cuddle with your Sun Conure at night before their bedtime, then that's fine, keep doing that, but during the time before snuggle-time with your Sun Conure, you should put your Sun Conure in his/her cage and let your IRN out for equal out-of-cage time, and then switch them out...And if it's already dark out when you have snuggle-time on the couch with your Sun Conure, then I'd probably start covering your IRN's cage with a sheet/blanket right after you put her back in her cage and just before you get your Sun Conure out of her cage. It's bedtime for her anyway, or it will be soon if it's dark out, and that way she's not going to be able to "watch" you cuddling with the Sun Conure, instead she'll just go to sleep; even if you have the TV on it won't bother her or keep her from sleeping if you cover her cage...

****I'm going to give you my personal and professional experience/advice/education of clipping a bird's wings, and I'll most-likely get negative responses to it because it's a very controversial issue, and people feel strongly about it. However, what people need to keep in-mind but they never do and rather they just start yelling and arguing is that clipping your bird's wings is a personal decision that every individual bird owner must make for themselves, their particular situation, their particular household, and their family. This is not a decision that anyone can or should make based on the beliefs/principles/ethics, whatever you want to call it, of other people...No one lives the same lives, no one has the same household situations, no one has the same birds with the same personalities or behaviors...And honestly, when it gets down to the point that a bird's behavior is potentially dangerous, then it's sometimes actually irresponsible to not clip your bird's wings. So above all else, regardless of what anyone else tells you, including me, YOU and the others in your household are the ones that ultimately have to make the right decision for yourselves and your birds.

****Now please don't get me wrong, all of my own birds are fully-flighted, none of them are clipped...And I don't at all believe in keeping your bird's wings clipped for their entire lives/indefinitely, nor do I believe in just clipping your bird's wings simply because you think it creates an "easier" situation for you. That's not fair to your bird(s)...However, other aspects of wing-clipping that people forget or just ignore due to their anger are that #1) It's completely temporary, and if done correctly and responsibly their wing-feathers will grow back within 2 months or so, #2) It causes them no pain at all, it's no more stressful for them than getting their toenails clipped, and much less stressful for them than having their beaks trimmed/filed, and #3) Depending on the situation, having your bird's wings clipped can actually IMPROVE a bird's life greatly, and potentially for the long-term! And I think that in your particular situation, since your IRN was most-likely not hand-raised and is not hand-tame at all, that having her wings clipped temporarily would not only keep you and your Sun Conure safe from "air-attacks" by your IRN, but if you make the most of the time her wings are clipped, it could also serve to hand-tame her and make your relationship with her much stronger/friendlier/directly interactive, and make the need for caging either bird totally unnecessary....So having your IRN's wings clipped temporarily could actually improve your situation all the way around.

I have hand-tamed many, many parent-raised/non-tame Budgies and Cockatiels throughout my life, along with other species of parrots at the Avian/Reptile Rescue that I've worked at for over 8 years now. And even though clipping a surrendered bird's wings is not my decision at the Rescue, as I'm not one of the people at the Rescue who works on their training/behavioral issues, I have still used their wings being clipped to my advantage...

First important rule to wing-clipping is that you want to have it done by someone who knows what they are doing, like a Certified Avian Vet/Avian Specialist Vet, or an experienced breeder, or possibly the owner/employee of a Bird Shop (not from Petco/Petsmart or some random pet shop that doesn't specialize in birds), AND regardless of where you take your bird to have her wings clipped, even if it is a Certified Avian Vet, you must always be sure to DEMAND that they only clip the outermost 5-6 Primary Flight-Feathers ONLY, no more and never into the Secondaries,
and that they always clip BOTH WINGS equally, never just one wing. This will ensure that she will still be able to glide easily to the floor and have complete control and that she won't drop to the floor like a stone. She just won't be able to get any altitude; also, you always must get both wings equally clipped and not just one, as some people still insist on doing, because if you only clip one wing they have no control at all, they will have no balance at all and they fall off of things, glide into things, and it also puts very huge stress on their spine and causes permanent spinal damage. So you have to be certain that you request/demand that they clip your bird the way you tell them to, and if they refuse or try to tell you that you should clip "more" than just the outermost 5-6 Primary Flight-Feathers or that you should only clip one wing, then you get your bird and get out of there, and find someone else to do it! Period.

***I think that if you take full-advantage of the time your IRN has her wings clipped (usually around 2 months if it's done the way described), and you work with her one-on-one every single day, in a room alone, without the Sun Conure, and without her cage being in the room working with her in (as their cage is their "safe space" and they typically will not pay any attention to you and just keep trying to get back to their cage), I think that you can actually make quite a bit of progress in hand-taming her...Working on the "floor" with your bird is key, as they have no perceived "dominance" when they are on the floor and the lowest thing in the room. Also, choosing a room where her cage is not and she can't see it, and where there are no other distractions such as your Sun Conure, and choosing a room where you can shut the door so it's just you and her working together, will keep her focuses completely on you, as well as taking her away from her "safe space" and make her less confident in herself...It's a trust-building exercise, just trying to get her to step-up for you while she's on the floor. If you're standing and she's on the floor, she's the lowest thing in the room, and you'll be shocked how much more compliant she is to what you ask her to do. Also, you want to have a bunch of whatever her favorite treat is in your pocket, because you need to reward her both with the treat and verbally praise her every time she does what you ask...Step #1 might be just getting her to take her favorite treat from your hand, if she won't do that already. Once she has that down, then you start asking her to simply "step-up" onto your finger, reward her quickly, then put her back down and repeat over and over again. Spending 20-30 minutes max a day doing this while she's clipped should work wonders in taming her. And then just letting her be out on top of her cage/in your living room when you're in the same room, where she can't fly away and where you don't have to be chasing her is hugely helpful (the worst mistake people make when trying to hand-tame a bird is they end-up chasing them all around the room with a towel, from curtain to curtain and picture frame to picture frame...this only serves to scare the bird more and make them trust you even less)...

This decision is totally up to you, and I'm sure you'll get differing opinions soon...But I think it would benefit your relationship with you IRN greatly...and once her wings grow back in after working with her every day for 2 months, the difference is going to be that hopefully you've earned her trust, or at least are on your way to earning her trust, and you'll be able to build on that even when she's flighted again.