Brining home a 2nd Ringneck - Bonding guidelines?

[skunkmonkey]

I've got a 4yr old Indian Ringneck named Rio. I just brought home a second hatchling Ringneck named Maui. I've been giving conflicting information about how to get the 2nd Ringneck to bond with our family before bonding with our other bird. I know that Ringnecks don't bond nearly as strongly as say our Rose Breasted Cockatoo, but Rio has definitely bonded to us. It took Rio about 3yrs before I'd say that she had really bonded.

On the one hand, I've been told the birds should be in separate rooms, and should not see each other at all until the new bird is bonded to our family, otherwise it will just bond with our bird.

Another person has told us that the birds are fine being in the same room (after 30-45 day quarantine) and it's fine if they see each other, you just want to not allow them to play with each other until the new bird has bonded to you.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

 

[Cottonoid]

Congratulations on your new baby! How fun!

I'm guessing people have had different things be successful so you're getting advice all over the place.

I'm a brand new to ringnecks myself, but I feel like I had a pretty good sense of my guy's body language within a month. And you probably know Rio pretty well by now. So it might be possible to kind of see how things go and read their cues for when to let them interact.

From what I know of ringnecks and adding a second bird, but haven't experienced, it seems like it wouldn't hurt to keep them in the same room after quarantine, then let them out one at a time to interact with you until you have a good sense of whether they are on an extreme of like/dislike of each other (like if one flies to the other's cage all the time, or one tries to bite the other through the cage all the time).

And then you can monitor Rio to see how she's acting with you - if she starts to want less time with you, or stays the same, etc.

Does Rio do any training exercises? Like recall flying to you on command? Or target training? Training with them one at a time can be a good way for them to see each other without one bird being focused only on the other. It can also be a really excellent way to create and maintain a bond, because you're giving them mental stimulation and rewards they can't get from just each other.

As far as bonding to your family vs your other bird, I wonder if that's likely to happen no matter when they see each other, even if it's after Maui has bonded with family members first. I wish I had more experience with ringneck babies to know how likely that is, though!

 

[skunkmonkey]

Thanks, yeah I will probably just play it by ear I guess. For now I'm letting them spend several hours each day in the same room (20ft apart) while Maui is in quarantine. Just so that they can get used to seeing each other, and maybe start to warm up to the idea of another bird being in the house.

Rio is insanely jealous at this point, and she yells at me whenever I go to let her out, so that I know that she isn't happy about the situation. Rio has never liked training unfortunately, she fights it vigorously. Maui seems to be amenable to it though, so I'll have to try that. Once Maui is more situated I'm also planning on bringing Maui into the shower with me occasionally as seeing their flock grooming themselves is a good bonding experience for birds.

 

[Cottonoid]

Rio's jealousy might be a little tricky to work around but it sounds like you have a good handle on how different Rio and Maui's personalities could be, and a good plan for slow introductions. They both sound really fun

While not ringnecks, another member here just introduced a new Amazon into a previous Amazon household - they've just recently started seeing each other after quarantine but are still separated. If that might be helpful to you, it's The kirb birb and sambo thread in the Amazon subforum.