New 18 Month Old IRN's

[deHens]

Hey,

Today we bought two 18 month old female yellow ringnecks from a breeder. He has some experience breeding ringnecks and had the 2 birds in an avairy envirment with several other ringnecks and other parrokeets in other cages.

The birds were ok in their avairy, they were the only ones with clipped wings and were happy to sit on your shoulder, even though we were strangers. There was no biting despite a bit of struggle but they were happy on our shoulders.

We decided to buy them and bought the two a lovely big cage and cilled it with sticks and a few toys. When we wanted to feed the birds treats and they were very scared of our hands, they tried to take the treats but would drop them instead. Whenever we put our ha ds near them they agressively launch at our fingers.

One of the birds nips the other when there close, but only sometimes. They want to kep biting us but the funny thing is that we opened up the cage and got them on to our arms with covering our fingers with sleeves or using a dowel for them to jump up onto, they wouldn't mind us and would come and sit on our shoulders (they only bit us on the neck once each but we didnt panic) they were completely fine to just sit their but would bite our hands a lot.

They also dont sing, whisle or anything, all they do is squak when their stressed. They are cute and seem to be liking their new habitat, they will take step up intructions from you but will still bite your hands.

Whats going on with our birds, can we ever tame them, teach them tricks or teach them to talk or even whistle?

If you need anything such as more info on them ore a photo feel free to ask.

Please help me!

[Skyes_crew]

Your birds will take time to get used to their new environment. You can tame them. You can teach them tricks. You can teach them to talk. But it will all take time. There are some people here working for a year or more to tame their birds. It takes a lot of patience. But it is possible. To start with, your birds have a fear if your hands. That is very normal. Start slowly by offering a treat out of the palm of your hand. You have to build trust between you and the bird. Small steps will offer great rewards. Try reading through some reads within the forum on taming. There is a lot if info offered here. Good luck

[Redzone]

I can't believe the breeder sold you a pair of females for pets! Did he know you would be keeping them in the same cage?

[Skyes_crew]

I said the same thing in his other post. I was shaking my head like WTH???

[deHens]

He knew they would be in the same cage, in fact he tried to sell us a cage with them. Here's the funny thing, the cage had a divider so you could separate the birds.

- Jack

[InTheAir]

Hmmm..That's a bit weird. Unless it's solid that won't stop them from potentially biting each others toes off...

I'm really curious, have you called him to tell him you're having trouble with them?

[Skyes_crew]

He may have assumed you were going to cage them separately or that you knew the potential hazards of having two females. Most pet owners have either separate cages or only keep males. There are people that keep a male female pair in one cage, but it's a lot of work. I know Ellie here has a pair, but she goes through so much to keep them from breeding.

[deHens]

Hey,

We have made the decision to sell one and keep the other. We are currently caging them separately and taking them out to play every afternoon (all we do is have them on our shoulders with a beanie so they can't bite our ears, in this we tell them to step onto our arms, with gloves and a thick shirt).

We have a small cage next to the big one with a towel on its side so it can't see the other, but we have been swapping them out in the small cage. So far it is very successful, initially the birds don't like it in the small cage (which I feel sorry for them) but its a better option than them biting each other to death.

They are very good birds and I can understand why they are so territorial with each other. We are giving them some little treats (fruit and nuts) as well as continuing their diet on vegetables. They have toys to play with and we will be ordering more for them.

We haven't yet contacted the breeder about the birds, he always had birds in an aviary environment and wouldn't know (although he did seem to know a lot about the species). We don't really want to contact him because we most likely won't get our money back and even if we don't he will most likely be unhappy (he is trying to sell all the birds, he doesn't want to care for them anymore).

Thanks for your guys help

- Jack