Company for young male eclectus

[BruceTheQuail]

Hi. We have an eckie hen ("Bird"). She is about 3, we have had her for a year. She is very healthy, and for the most part is nice though she will bite (has done ever since we have had her) and is quite bossy. Essentially in temperament she is like a clucky lovebird hen, and we have had a lot of experience with them (at the cost of maybe a litre of blood).

We have a young **** eclectus, Parker. He is a lovely, gentle boy about a year old. Her is just sarting to talk well and plays a lot. We had bought the hen essentially to keep Parker company (we got her while we were waiting for him to be weaned). But ultimately she is a bit of a bully to him, if they are out at the same time she will go to his cage and nip his feet.

We are thinking of something else as company for Parker. There is usually someone around the house, and he is next to Bird, but it would be nice if he had a male playmate. I was thinking of a blue fronted amazon but my reservation is that they live a lot longer than the eclectus and there might be a trauma when one outlived the other for a long time. Another option is another male eckie, or maybe a caique. Or maybe do nothing.

Has anyone any thoughts about that?

 

[OutlawedSpirit]

I don't know about a companion, but I just wanted to point out that there is no guarantee that an amazon would necessarily outlive your Ekkie.

Ekkies have been said to have a shorter lifespan because their nutritional needs were not understood until fairly recently. Thusly they did not live as long as they probably can in captivity. If we ate nothing but fast food and candy, we probably wouldn't live long either. It's thought that with proper diet and care they can live as long as a lot of parrots.

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[BruceTheQuail]

Good point. I was working on 30 years for the eckies and 60 for the Amazon. We are very careful with the diet.

 

[EdwardH]

I would be looking at reducing/eliminating the biting behaviour of your hen, there are quite a few posts on the board to help you accomplish this. This would resolve both your issues. As a suggestion when out of their cages, have them away from their cages (another room would be ideal) so that they don't get territorial, especially if the female is of breeding age. In nature, the female will defend her nesting site from all comers.
Keep in mind that a bird renowned for biting usually gets rehomed, often multiple times or gets left in a cage with little or no interaction leading to behaviour problems, plucking, screeching and you guessed it, more biting.

 

[BruceTheQuail]

Cheers. I have been working on that. She is quite good, and happy to step up but seems to want to have a go at arms and hands, especially bare skin. She can give one hell of a bite when whe wants to. I'll check the forum about that.