hi all
i wonder if anyone could give advice. we have a cockatiel who si 9 years old, a friend of mine from work has a young budgie and can no longer keep it due to the reason that her granddaughter is allergic to bird feathers and dust. i would like to have the budgie myself, but would it be ok to home the budgie with the cockatiel. we have no room for a new cage, as we already have a red lored amazon in another large cage, ferrets in the ferret nation cage in the same room. i know they can be kept together but would it be ok to introduce them to each other eventhough the cockatiel is 9 years old. please help
lynnh

budgies do sometimes take to cockateils to be honest its generally in a avairy i would say itr may be a little unfair on your cockatiel to put such a young bird in with him .As the young budgie may harass the older bird maybe not aggressively but playing. But it may be too much for your older bird and your bird has been on its own for so long.It maynot take to another bird now. Could you not set up a cage next to your cocateil for some time first to see how they react together with the safty of bars between them. see how your bird is. If yours gets let out for exercise you could try them out together at least they can get away from each other and arent forced together.

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Oscar babii

Thing is also if the Cockatiel does take to the Budgie and the other way araound, you may also find he may distance himself from human contact and more towards the Budgie. same as putting another cockatiel with a cockatiel. so you my lose the closeness with him.

I don't think budgies are very good in with cockatiels as they can be too boysterous, and you can't get 2 birds and put them in a cage together and hope they get on, you couldn't do that even if it was another cockatiel you were getting! You would need to put them in seperate cages, but close to eachother, as suggested above. If you don't have space for another cage then I would let your friend find another home for the budgie.

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