- Hey guys.
So today I wanted to talk
to you guys and help with some preening
about whether or not you should cage birds together
or separately.
And first of all, in the comments
I would love to know what you currently do.
Do you have multiple birds
and do you cage them together or separately and why?
So basic rule of thumb for me and my birds
is I try to cage them as individually as possible, as often
as possible so that when I need to cage them together
they're more excited to spend time together.
They're not sick of one another.
They're looking forward to it.
These guys have actually been in separate aviaries
which is why they are helping each other preen.
And they're enjoying being together right now so much
which is awesome.
This is kind of ideal.
This is what I like to see.
And I think that this happens
because they're not forced to be together all the time.
So they're not on top of each other all the time.
They're not having to share their food
their water, their space, their favorite patches
their favorite toys it's divided.
So they all have their own time.
And then when they come together
they're excited to spend time together
and they're more likely to get along.
So that's kind of what I do with my own birds.
However, there are some funky dynamics
in my flock that make this possible or not.
Sometimes these guys get along the best out of my flock.
They are brothers, they are hatched just a few days apart.
And so they've kind of always been together as far
as they've been raised together.
So they've always done fairly well.
However, they were raised with my blue third Comet Jinx
who really messes the dynamic.
So Jinx can be housed with either of these guys
just the two of them.
Right? So if it's Jinx and Comet, it's fine.
If it's jinx and Tusa, it's fine.
If it's comet and Tusa, it's fine.
But if it's all three, it's all chaotic.
The dynamics is just totally off.
There's a third wheel.
So when it comes to caging birds together
the biggest dynamics that you need to be aware
of is first of all, gender,
whether or not you're putting two males together,
two females a male and a female,
whether or not you're looking to have them breed
or not some birds like Morgan for instance
who was a Camelot Mecca I worked with
she was very hormonally triggered by my male birds.
And so housing them together could have caused problems.
Having her with either of these guys more
consistently would have triggered her hormones more often
than when I would have liked to see.
So if you also have that issue, then a way
of avoiding that is obviously not housing them together
but still allowing them to be
around each other and be together.
The biggest concern I have when it comes
to people asking me whether or not they should cage together
or separately is size
the size of the bird and the size of the enclosure.
So the size of the bird
I would never put a buggy with a Mecca
because one little accident in that budget would be dead.
It would just be a horrible tragedy.
However, I want to preface this with the fact
that things can go wrong at any point in time.
So even if you have birds like these guys,
sorry there's all this like
stuff on you guys
where they have always gotten along.
And everything's always been great.
That doesn't mean that one day things aren't great
and they might have a spout out something
and one of them gets hurt.
So that's kind of the risk you take,
when you house birds togather
somethings can go wrong.
There's a horrible, horrible story.
About two Amazon's, a male
and a female that used to always get along.
And it was a story from a rescue where one day they didn't
and the male almost killed the female.
And it was really horrific and really sad.
And it's something that you just need to be aware
of the risks.
So you understand what kind of risks you're taking.
I try to minimize that risk by making sure
that when they do come together,
they're more likely to get along
and more likely to be happy to see each other.
Then if they're together all the time
and then out there together all the time
if you had to constantly share your stuff all the time
it would get real old, real fast.
And you wouldn't really appreciate being around
that other person or you might get sick of them
really quickly.
I try to avoid these guys ever feeling that way.
So housing them separately as much
as possible is what I like to do.
So then when I do bring them together
maybe I want to fit more birds outside.
So I start pairing them together.
It works out in is harmonious.
And the big rule of thumb there is to separate the birds
before they show discomfort in being together.
So if you start bickering in the aviary,
I'm like, Oh it's time for them to be separated.
I want to have figured that out days before.
Did you want to come?
Hi?
So I want to separate them
while they're still getting along
so that everything is super good.
And then when we come together, it's awesome.
So everything is harmonious the whole time ideally.
get cuddle bucket
you are molting you just have stuff coming off you in waves.
So then the other size thing I mentioned was the size
of the enclosure.
So if your cage is really tiny, it only has two food dishes
which means has one room for water, one room for food.
It's probably not ideal for birds to be sharing
because most likely one bird is gonna
become more dominant over the other.
So when I put my two galoshes Bondai and Bandit together.
Bandit is the more dominant one.
He's the one that's going to protect the food dish
against Bondai.
Bandai is a lot more submissive and easygoing.
Whereas when I put Bandit
and my Congo African gray Cressy together
Cressy more dominant she's the foodie of all.
She doesn't want to share.
She's the one that's gonna eat out of her dish
and then go over and eat out of his dish.
So I could not house Cressy and Bandit together full time
for a long amount of time.
I can house Cressy and Bandit together
Bondai and Bandit together.
There's certain dynamics that work
and certain ones that don't
so really keep eye on your bird and make sure
that you're doing the best by your bird safety wise.
Make sure that you have a really big enclosure with plenty
of food and water and toys and favorite patches
and things that they're really gonna like that
they're not gonna fight over.
That's really the key here.
So don't shove birds together in small enclosures,
not nice.
The other thing I like about housing the birds
separately is I can tell how much they're eating.
I can really keep an eye on the droppings
to see that they look normal.
And I can just tell overall health wise
that they're getting enough food,
because a lot of the time
if I house Cressy with anybody else
she's going to eat a portion and a half.
And that other bird is only going to get a half portion.
And it's really hard to control the food
at that point and know how much your bird is eating
that it's not overeating or under eating or getting bullied.
So I like to keep an eye on that kind of stuff.
Also, my birds get a little bit differences in diet.
So Cressy is my female Congo African gray
and she gets a calcium supplement.
So I don't need these guys getting a calcium supplement.
So I wouldn't really want that sharing food.
So that's just kind of something else to keep in mind.
If the diet is different between your birds
maybe you have completely different species
of birds that have a completely different diet based
on what your vet has told you, or one's on medication
or one is switching over to a healthier diet.
Whereas the other one's already there
you might want to keep that separate
so that you can tell what's going on
and how much food that bird is getting.
So that's kind of another reason that I like to
keep mine separate for the most parts that I can really tell
and dive into the health of each and every single bird.
Okay. The sun is out.
So I'm going to wear my sunglasses
because it is super bright on my eyes guys.
Sorry.
So one of the questions that I get is
if your birds get along, should you house them together?
Again, it goes back to what I said before.
Ideally you want to have them spend time
out of the cage together.
That's really what they're going to enjoy
verses being housed together.
I'm really an advocate of housing separately
just for utmost health.
Being able to tell everything
that you need to be able to tell,
to keep your bird healthy.
And just for the betterment of the bird
not having to worry.
There's been times where I just had those project
birds Lefty and Tusa
and there were times when I first got them.
I was like,
man, I really don't know these birds that well
should I house them together?
Because what if
you know, just what if something happened?
And it really scared me.
So quite a lot of time, I did house those guys separately
or put them on separate patches
or whatever I needed to do just till I got
to know them a little bit better.
But like I said, you never know
something can always go wrong.
So I like to do it individually.
And then when they're out just hanging out
they can come together and really enjoy everybody.
And I think that's enough.
So again, I do, house my birds together quite a bit
but I try to be really particular about it.
So it's more about, I have four aviaries out here
which you guys will see in a minute.
And if I'm trying to fit all the birds out at once
I do need to double up to be able to do that.
So I definitely do it.
I just try to do it as least as I as little.
Oh my gosh.
Talking again, not my forte apparently
I try to do it as little as possible
so that all the birds always enjoying each other.
The other concern that people tend to have
about housing birds together is
that they feel like they'll get more bonded
to each other than to the person.
Most of the time, what people are referring
to when they're talking about these birds
bonding to each other, instead of the human
is that the human hasn't done any training
or any I guess work into showing, improving that
the relationship with the human is awesome.
So I do believe
if you tame and train the two birds individually
to where you have a relationship with both
and then you have them together.
It's not a problem like with these guys
I have a relationship with both of them
and I wouldn't say
they're more bonded to each other over me.
I would say they come
out when I ask them to, they go back in when I ask them to
there's reward and there's something in it for them
in both of those scenarios.
So I think remembering that is really key.
You guys are really talkative,
just like baby mode over here.
I don't usually get Tuso on baby mode, but he's kind of
he's a little bit baby mode.
I miss so much the baby Mecall wing flap when
they'd be like, wow.
And it's like, it comes off as involuntary wing flap.
I love the baby wing flap.
I don't see the baby wing flat very much anymore.
Will you baby wing flap?
Oh that was a little bit of it.
Don't believe that birds will get more bonded
to one another, unless your relationship sucks
it starts off sucking and it continues to suck.
So if you just continue to prove that you're not worthwhile
you're not positively associated with anything, then yes
that other bird is going to be safer.
It's going to be more comfortable around that other bird.
And that's just like a natural, a natural thing.
But I thought that if you're actually working
towards having a good relationship
that's not something that will normally happen.
Also. I'm a huge advocate
of working with each bird individually.
So maybe having them housed separately
until you've developed a relationship
and then putting them together every so often.
But again, it's a balance.
I really believe that there's a balance
and you guys are just constant constant workers
that was the second of quiet.
So I'm gonna go ahead and show you guys
where these guys are housed.
So obviously right now
you're just hanging out in my garden.
And again, my bird,
Oh, we're having a foot check.
That was Comet.
My birds are free flight trained outdoors.
That means they come back when I call them
from flying outside
which they obviously have no interest in flying right now.
So free flight train doesn't always mean lying.
It also means hanging out.
But I'm going to show you what their enclosures look like.
And I just wanted to say
that free flight thing so that you guys don't take
out your untrained birds, outside
thinking that these guys aren't drained or something.
So those of you new to the channel.
So this is my aviary setup out here.
I have two different,
well I have three different aviary setups.
One is indoors.
This one is outdoors at this location.
And I have another one at another, at my house.
That's also outdoors.
So this is for aviaries.
They are six foot diameter.
Except for this one that you see right here.
This is, I think more of like a four foot diameter.
That one's a bit smaller.
So I like to house all of my birds separately in these.
And then the ones indoors are five by eight.
And you can see Cressy my African grays
is in here by herself.
So this is Cressy, my African gray
and how I have this currently set up
is that everybody does have their own aviary.
So over here in this one is my Toko Tike Brocco
and then Comet and Tusa are in these.
So this one, and then the other one diagonal to here.
So everybody's in their own enclosure here.
And then at my house currently I have Bondai
and Jinx and they're both in their own aviaries as well.
So look at these handsome guys.
You guys are so handsome.
(Laughs)
You guys are so handsome.
I love you guys.
I love you guys
You wanna come?
Ooh what a good boy.
What a good boy.
But anyways.
So that gives you an idea
of the enclosures that I'm keeping my birds.
I don't do normal cages.
I try to keep them as big as possible
just so that the birds are keeping healthy.
One of the big things
for me is I want their feather condition to be pristine.
So that means lots of natural sunlight, lots of bathing
lots of space.
so that they're not ruining them on the cage bars.
Oh my gosh, they're so cute.
So that is the big reason
that I use aviaries both outdoors and indoors.
They're my go to, I want my birds to have as much space
as possible to have opportunities for forging
for exercise when they're not flying
I want them climbing and active.
I want to create as much enrichment
for them as possible inside their enclosures.
And yeah, I just want it to be the best
that it can possibly be for them.
If I'm Super honest,
I've been day dreaming about just netting in five acres,
just netting the whole thing
and having them just out in that
I feel like it'd be amazing.
So someday guys, someday, you guys deserve that.
Huh? Some big property just to fly around.
And netted because I wouldn't have to worry
about predators at that point.
Hopefully if it's strong enough netting.
So it's not to keep them in
it's to keep other things out.
Huh!
(Upbeat music)