Is it a good idea to keep 2 IndianRingnecks in a single cage

[RobinRichard]

Is it a good idea to keep 2 IndianRingnecks in a single cage? Male and Female. Untamed. Bought 2 days ago. Male already has the black ring. They are very shy and won't even come closer. They come only to eat. They bite if I get my hand closer to them.

Keeping those 2 in a single cage? Will this affect the process of myself bonding with my parrots? Or should I keep it separately till I bond with them??

[ellieelectrons]

Hi RobinRichard

It will take a while for the birds to become accustomed to you and their new surroundings. Everything is probably very scary for them at the moment.

If the birds were not housed together before you brought them home, it is generally not a good idea to house them together until they seem comfortable interacting with each other. With ours, we housed them near each other (cages side-by-side) and let them out of their cage at the same time and when they seemed to be interacting well, then we supervised them carefully when we put them in together. One book I read suggested that you know they are ready to be put together when they both sleep as close as they can to the other when in the side-by-side cages. They also suggested that, ideally, you would put the two of them into a completely new cage when it was time to cohabitate so that neither of them felt protective of their territory. We didn't have the luxury of doing this, so we rearranged all of the perches, toys, etc. in our bigger cage before putting them both in there.

I hope that helps.

Good luck with your new birds!

Regards

Ellie.

[RobinRichard]

Thanks for the reply! Anyway I have put those two in a single cage and they don't seem to bother about each other.. They are perfectly in sync and don't fight with each other even for food.. They are very quiet and calm, bite papers, eat fruits, preen themselves, preen each other.. That is all ok.. But when I get closer, they feel afraid and they go and stand in the extreme corner to get away from me.. But if I give them food, they come closer cautiously and eat from my hand.. But they won't let me to touch or hold or lift them or whatever.. Anyway, this and all doesn't bother me.. I know it takes time for the birds to get to know me.. My problem is, since they are in the same cage, whether they will develop a bond between themselves and won't care to bond with me? I love my new parrots and I so much want to bond with them and pet them.. Can you answer this particular question? Thank you!!

[ellieelectrons]

Hi RobinRichard

My guess is that your progress will probably be slower, but not impossible, when you have two birds in the same cage. The nice part of it will be that when one learns something, they may sort of teach other.

The taming process is a slow one. It will probably be some time before you will be able to handle them. I use the positive reinforcement training model. I choose a behaviour I want them to learn whether it be stepping up or just taking a treat from my hand or plaing basketball, and try to break it down into micro-steps. I reward the bird each time they complete a micro-step and eventually, they get learn the whole thing.

I personally find Barbara Heidenreich's DVDs a really good place to start. The first one is called Parrot Behaviour and Training.

Barbara has a blog entry that talks about how to get scared birds to step up onto your hand. It's also on her first DVD in-depth but she mentions it briefly on her blog here:
http://goodbirdinc.blogspot.com/2009/06 ... up_28.html

Pinkdevil metioned that you could try piquing their curiousity by eating in front of them (whether they are in the cage or out of the cage). Watching you eat will usually make them curious and they may come closer to inspect... and will most likely love it if you offer them some! (just make sure it's birdy safe)

There are other ways of training birds that involve fear responses and forcing them to do what you want. I, personally, try not to use these methods and would much prefer to have a happy bird who wants to spend time with me even if it means taking longer to learn things. Teaching a bird behaviours is a great way to build your bond with your bird.

Good luck!

Ellie.

[RobinRichard]

Thank you! Can you tell me more about the "positive reinforcement training"? Any links to content that explains me clearly how to do that training without the need to order and buy a DVD?

[ellieelectrons]

Sure.

Positive reinforcement - pasted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrot_training
Positive training puts the owner in the leader position. One's parrot will begin looking to him or her for cues on how to behave. By using positive reinforcement and keeping bird training sessions fun, the parrot will try to please its owner to get positive attention as a reward. According to Irene Pepperberg's famous avian research, pet birds have the intelligence of a 3 to 5-year-old child.[3] They require mental stimulation to remain emotionally healthy. Bird trick training exercises the bird's brain with the benefit of owner and parrot bonding more closely.

Here are some defintions from http://www.rdcbs.org/LinkClick.aspx?lin ... 57&mid=375.

Positive Reinforcement: The presentation of a stimulus following a behavior that serves to maintain or increase the frequency of the behavior. Another name for positive reinforcement is reward training. Positive reinforcers tend to be valued or pleasant stimuli. To get positive reinforcers, learners often enthusiastically exceed the minimum effort necessary to gain them. Recommended!

Negative Reinforcement: The removal of a stimulus following a behavior that serves to maintain or increase the frequency of the behavior. Another name for negative reinforcement is escape/avoidance training. Negative reinforcers tend to be aversive or

unpleasant stimuli. To avoid negative reinforcers, learners often only work to the level necessary to avoid them. Not recommended!

Punishment: The presentation of an aversive stimulus, or removal of a positive reinforcer, that serves to decrease or suppress the frequency of the behavior. The use of punishment tends to produce detrimental side effects such as counter aggression, escape behavior, apathy and fear. Also, punishment doesn’t teach the learner what to do to earn positive reinforcement. Not Recommended!

Here here are some links.

- a good introduction by Barbara Heidenreich:
http://www.rdcbs.org/LinkClick.aspx?lin ... 57&mid=375
- another introduction by Steve Martin:
http://www.realmacaw.com/pages/underbird.html
- more parrot training terminology by Barbara Heidenreich:
http://www.goodbirdinc.com/parrot-train ... ology.html
- Here are some of Barbara's blog entries labelled positive reinforcement:
http://goodbirdinc.blogspot.com/search/ ... nforcement

Sorry that they are so Barbara heavy... but her method of training is the one that I try to follow. I'm not always that great at it, but I do try

Regards

Ellie.

[RobinRichard]

Thank you very much for your help!

[DrazesnePapigice]

Hello people,
I need help… I own four Indian Ringnecks. Two of them (Ana and Ricky) are pair who lived together and had been breeding before they came to my aviary. Ana is about 5 and Ricky is about 6 years old.
After them I get green baby named Toby from same breeder. I don’t know gender of that beautiful bird but I called it because s/he only reacted on that name. Toby came to me at August 4th and we made a good relationship. S/he is very smart IRN.
Few days ago, I’ve got another one IRN, yellow one. It’s also young bird of few months old. I named s/he Ra. Ra is very shy bird and use to sit on perch most of the day. Every day I let Toby and Ra together from cages. They live in separate cages because Toby really hates Ra. When I open Toby’s cage, first thing that s/he do is fly at the top of Ra’s cage and try to bite her/him. After that torture, Ra won’t to get out of cage but Toby use to enter Ra’s cage and eat food from there. After s/he ate enough, s/he starts to torture Ra.
I don’t know what to do to make them friendly each other. Ra isn’t aggressive bird. It’s really calmed and nice bird.
Toby is claver. S/he’ll not to attack Ra if me or someone other watch. But, if nobody is with them or Toby thinks that nobody watch, s/he’s first idea is to bite Ra.

What to do? Please help!