Parakeet Separation Question

[986sj52]

Hello,

I'm new to the forums here, hoping to find some answers to a few questions for my grandmother, a loving parakeet owner of 6 (3 males, 3 females).

Previously, she had all 6 in one parakeet habitat, but one of the older females has started fighting with the youngest female parakeet (still a baby). The older female parakeet will look at the younger parakeet fly and walk around the cage, and eventually will come down from the highest perch to attack her. She'll sometimes guard the food bowl from the baby parakeet even though she herself is not hungry.

This happened once, and we moved the older female parakeet to another habitat. We returned her after a few days thinking everything would be fine, but after 2-3 weeks, the fighting has started again, and she is back in the other habitat.

The older female parakeet has a male she has mated and bonded with in the past, but we moved him along with her the first time and he kept chirping anytime he'd see the others, presumably because he wanted to be back in the other habitat.

The older female parakeet is alone in the habitat, but we worry it might affect her health if she is lonely. I don't think we can move any of the others because she doesn't get along with the other two females, there are two males who she doesn't mind being around, but those males get along with the other 5 parakeets. The last male, the parakeet she's mated with, does bond with her if they're together, but he also is friends with the other parakeets. They other 5 parakeets were also chirping when they saw him in the other habitat last time.

Any recommendations? Ideally, I think she'd like to have all of them in one habitat. I think she was interested in purchasing a larger habitat soon. Is there maybe a divider wall that would split it into two?

Thank you in advance. I hope this all makes sense.

 

[Jcas]

You mention the older female guarding the food bowl. Is that the only food dish in the habitat? I only have two parakeets but have found that having multiple food bowls goes a long way towards preventing fights and resource guarding. If they truly can’t get along, I would try separating the younger female into a different habitat. Perhaps you could move one of the males in with her? It sounds like the older female gets along fine with the others so to me it makes more sense to remove the younger and leave others together.

 

[986sj52]

She has a larger food bowl for the 6, enough for a few of them to eat at the same time with space to breathe (larger than the standard food bowls that come with nearly every parakeet habitat). I don't know if she really resource guards, she would let the others eat, but specifically not let the baby parakeet eat. During the 2-3 weeks of no fighting, they never encountered each other, and she wasn't preventing her from eating. It seems to be random.

Thank you, that isn't something we thought about, probably because we, or she thought, removing the baby parakeet would be rewarding the older parakeet, the one who starts the fighting.

There's one male we can move with the baby parakeet. He bonds with the others sometimes but has mostly kept to himself.