Thanks everyone for the good wishes
.......unfortunately, it seems our blue boy is feeling, well, BLUE about the new addition
He does not like her AT ALL!! Poor Pepper just wants to go to him, and be near him all the time, but Mr Cranky-Pants (his new nickname!!) just chases her away all the time, and growls at her, even tries to bite her
And he also seems to think that, although his cage is out of bounds to Pepper, her cage seems to be fair game! He will chase her out of it so he can eat her food, if she's inside with the door closed, he'll cling to the side of her cage, following her around, trying to attack her through the bars, Grrrrrrr!!
We had to strip all the toys and ropes of the "playgym" tree branch we made up for him, as he had claimed possession of it, and wouldn't let her sit on it.
Suffice to say, she is becoming bolder now, and starting to stand up for herself, which is good. She'll even go so far as teasing him - we think she likes him to chase her
And it looks like she is going to be quite a bit bigger than him when she fills out, so he'd better watch out, cos I reckon he'll get his come-uppance one of these days, and sooner rather than later!
Other than an obnoxious future mate, Pepper is settling in well....has the house mapped out already, is super active, (loves flying from one spot to another), eats like a horse, and is starting to get quite vocal, testing out her sounds
We can only hope, that given time, Skittles will come 'round, and stop being so grumpy. Until then, they are both watched with eagle eyes when out of cages together, but we are also alternating time out of cage with each, so they get some one-on-one interaction with us. Pepper is still timid of us, but she has just started occasionally taking a piece of apple from us......so making a little headway there