Millie won't leave Bundii alone. Help!!

[Bundiibird]

Ok so Millie will not leave Bundii alone. Everywhere Bundii plays, Millie has to follow not to do the same thing but to show her dominance over Bundii.

As Millie is bigger than Bundii I have concerns about letting them sort it out between themselves. The other reason is Millie has a tendancy to wave her foot out in front of her and I am scare Bundii is going to lunge and bite the foot.

We have tried time outs, strong verbal queues, separate out times from cages, distraction with toys and I am about out of ideas.

Does anyone have any suggestion and/or experience with socialising and integrating an Amazon and an Alex?

Side note: They both have the same cages, play gyms and space, but Millie always seems to prefer Bundii's cage/space.

 

[Flboy]

Bumping you back into daylight. You have your hands full!

 

[Kiwibird]

That is a tough one.

My first thought would be is there anything Bundii has Millie doesn't? Like smaller toys or smaller size pellets Millie may like better than her own and interprets as some kind of "preferential treatment" that Bundii gets them and she doesn't? Obviously that wouldn't be your intention, but birds can be really funny like that. Every so often, a scuffle will break out between my moms very bonded amazons over a toy or new perch, sleep hut etc... one likes better than the one they got. I might try giving identical toys and possibly even swapping their play stands to see if that helps. Might also switch up Millie's cage, rearrange perches, move toy locations etc... even possibly try to make it as similar to layout as Bundii's as possible to see if it renews her interest in her own stuff. Sometimes what may be an imperceivable difference to us is some huge point of offense to our birds.

 

[Anansi]

Not cutie-pie "Baby Face" Millie! Say it ain't so!

Actually, Maya tended to try and boss Jolly around in the beginning. If both cages were open and his was close enough for her to reach from hers, she'd go into his cage and chase him out.Then Heaven forbid if he dared go into hers! Smh.

So I took two steps. First, all of their out time is on two separate play stands away from their cages. This cuts down on Maya's territorial issues. I realize this particular part doesn't work as well for you. It works here because Maya, the more aggressive of the two, refuses to fly. And Jolly is an expert flier. So if she has an issue with him being on her stand, he's long gone before she makes her way over to where he was. Lol!

But the second part is what aligns more closely with Millie and Bundii's situation. I allowed them to be within reach of each other only so long as I was practically right on top of them. (And never on either bird's own cage. VERY important. I used the tree stands.) And in that way I allowed them to work it out themselves... to a point. Any time it devolved into the beginnings of a ruckus I immediately separated them. (I was lucky. Neither was willing total me. But the risk is very much there when dealing with swiftly gnashing beaks.) Some people view that as being overprotective, but I never risked anything further between them. Those beaks can do a lot of damage.

Anyhow, the interesting thing was that Maya would push and push... until the day finally came when Jolly stood up to her. She was like, "Whaaaaaaaaa?!?" Now don't get me wrong. Maya is still the dominant one. But she definitely shows him a lot more respect ever since he stood up to her.

At this point they are able to spend time together on the same tree stand, here and there. And if Maya is just not in the mood, Jolly will sense it and go elsewhere. Point is, they have come to some sort of understanding. But it definitely took a good while.

Of course, you can't be expected to hover over them for the entire time that they are out. So what I would do is to designate certain times as together times, when you can be right on top of them. During these times, if Millie escalates things to a straight out fight, she gets put on timeout. And when you can't be hovering over them, they should just get separate out times. This might take a while, but hopefully they will eventually find their equilibrium as Jolly and Maya did.