6 Ringnecks in a Large avairy. What should I do?

[cameron_15]

Hello everyone, I've currently got 6 ringnecks living in a large avairy (plenty of room for them to fly, lots of hiding spaces etc) where they've been living for the past year or so. We started out with 2, then bought another breeding pair locally and adopted two more that were frequently hanging around the outside of the cage. I live on a bushland property on the outer edges of melbourne, Australia so we thought it was best to capture these two that obviously were attracted to their fellow ringnecks. At the time, they were young and have since developed the ring around there neck, leaving 5 males and only 1 female in the cage. Something I'm not too happy about.

A heirachy has been established whereby the youngest two (the ones we adopted) have been pushed to the bottom and when I feed the birds (other than seeds) they are always last to eat. I do however, make sure they get some.

As i've said, I'm not particularly happy with this and I think the birds would be better off seperated. However, given the sex's of the birds, seperating them would leave 2 or more males in the same avairy. Would this lead to fighting and continued dominance of the older and bigger birds?

I think my only option is to sell the two we adopted, buy another avairy and place the breeding pair in it and purchase another 2 females to even out numbers.

also, the birds are still healthy, energetic and noisy however some of them appear to have (small!) disruptions to their feathers, possibly caused by the heat of the australian summer? or maybe due to a little bir of fighting in the cage?


Just after some feedback really, anything would be useful.

Thank you

[ellieelectrons]

Hi Cameron

I think you are lucky that you only have one female in there. Males are more likely to get along with each other than females.

During breeding season females get extremely aggressive and would most likely kill a second female.

All of the IRN breeders that I know about have breeding pairs in separate aviaries.

Best wishes with your birds!

I had know idea that you could find IRNs in the wild here in Australia!

Ellie.

[cameron_15]

Thanks for the prompt reply,

I beleive the two we found were someone elses pets and were obviously drawn to the noises of our Ringnecks. We only decided to catch them after we noticed them on more than one occasion latching onto the side of our avairy trying to get food I assume. They didn't mind us getting close enough to catch them. also, we did try to find the origional owners but to no avail.

and for the record, We're not really trying to breed them, we just have them as pets.

[SCB -SA]

hi just a thought would be to add another large avairy and place your females there, and leave your males as is, just leaves a problem of what you would do when breeding season comes, would mean you would end up needing smaller breeding cages of aviaries to split them into when itis breeding season, but at least they would be in bigger aviaries for the larger part of the year? well at least thats how some of us do it here, keep the males together and then females together and only pair them together for breeding season.

[cameron_15]

The plan now is to buy another avairy and move the female (yellow) and the male (blue) that appear to be coupling togethor alot into this and monitoring their actions. Is this a bad idea? I don't really want to leave the one female alone...

[ellieelectrons]

I'm not a breeder... but that sounds ok to me... and the other males should get along just fine.

Ellie.

[SCB -SA]

Hi there, that should be fine, and just watch to see how the males get along, but everyone should get along just fine.