Is a Bird a Suitable Companion for You?

Sybil Erden, Director - The Oasis Sanctuary, September - December 2002

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Part Three - Living with a Flock of Parrots

In the previous two sections we have looked at who, why and what birds are. We have touched upon the sort of commitment it takes to bring a bird into our lives...

It becomes somewhat more problematic if you already have a bird living in your home. Perhaps you now are gaining a different perspective or understanding of his needs. You love that bird but fear you do not have enough time to give him the emotional and psychological stability he requires. Or perhaps you have known for a while that s/he is unhappy and have contemplated solutions ranging from giving him to a new home, an adoption program, or to a sanctuary. But since you are reading this, I will guess that ultimately you really want to make it work for this family member....

Or perhaps you are a person who loves watching birds in the wild and would like to create an environment, a sustainable habitat, for a bird and want to allow him to "be a bird" rather than necessarily a companion. Many of us have come to understand that since birds are flock animals, it is difficult if not almost impossible to give them a lifetime of the emotional and psychological support that they need...and that they do get from the flock.

While it is true that sometimes two birds are more noisy than one, it is not necessarily so. Birds who scream incessantly may be doing it due to fear or loneliness. Another bird may help alleviate that anxiety. It is important to recognize, however, the calls of birds, particularly in the morning and late afternoons, are totally normal behavior. Whether you have one bird or a flock, this twice-daily cacophony is as much a part of living with birds as dog or cat fur is a part of living with any of those four-legged creatures.

It is also true that having numerous birds means that it takes longer to prepare their food and clean their cages and play stands. But the offset is that several birds can ideally keep one another company, thereby freeing up some of your time without guilt.

So, if you wish to be around birds, or if you have a companion bird already but fear he is lonely, then perhaps a companion for your companion, or the development of a small flock of small non-companion birds, may be the ideal situation for your home.

Finches and Canaries, even little Budgies, Lovebirds or Cockatiels are relatively simple to set up in an indoor aviary. A large cage with multiple perches, several feeding stations with enough room for each bird to fly about and still have space alone are necessary. Lighting, particularly natural or UV, is crucial for this or for any bird living indoors.

Even with multiple birds, toys and other enrichment items is necessary. Such an aviary can be purchased or custom built to fit into a portion of a living or family room, bringing a touch of nature into the home. While most "pet stores" may not have cages appropriate for small flocks, going to a large bird show where cage vendors are displaying a large number of styles of cages will help give you ideas. And you may find someone able to help you design and build just the right environment for you and your feathered friends.

When establishing a small bird flock, remember that most of these birds will have little interest in humans and more interest in their cage mates. Many hand-reared birds will remain interested in you even if they are now part of a flock. The flock is the ideal situation to observe and truly learn how birds interact in the wild. Personally, I find it far more interesting and educational, especially if one has children, than having a hand-reared bird who may be a little person with wings...

With larger birds it is more difficult to create a large flock, mostly due to spatial restraints. Unless one has a large amount of suitable backyard....and understanding neighbors, setting up a "flight" size aviary for larger birds may just be a dream. But a small flock, or even a non-breeding pairing, can be created and can allow you to remain a "flock member" rather than the "parent" or surrogate "mate" of the bird. In order to give you an idea of the variability of how this comes about, I will give you examples of situations we have encountered at The Oasis...

Sassy, Cosmo and Milo

Sassy, Cosmo and Milo are special-needs birds who live at The Oasis. Sassy and Cosmo are large female Moluccan Cockatoos. Milo is a tiny male Citron Cockatoo.

Sassy, born in 1995, is one of the main reasons The Oasis came into existence. Born with severely deformed feet and legs, I received Sassy at 6 months of age after her breeder had extensive orthopedic surgeries done to try to correct the problems. Even after the surgeries, at that time we were unsure whether she would ever walk properly and the thought of Sassy ever being able to perch was simply an unspoken dream. Within a year she showed us how incredibly resilient these little wonders can be. With modifications to her environment (mostly carpeting on the floors to pad her deformed feet) and by allowing her feathers to remain long enough for complete flight, Sassy has become a fearless force to contend with.

Cosmo came into my life about a year and a half later as an untenable and improbable neonate. Born with only half a crop and other internal problems, it seemed unlikely she would survive her first year. With round-the-clock hand-feedings, numerous bouts of antibiotics due to ongoing infections and rounds of pneumonia, Cosmo beat the odds.

Milo arrived at The Oasis in early 2000, as a young adult. A long-term plucker, he had been abandoned at a Veterinarian's office in California when his family went through a divorce. In fear and distress his feather plucking became severe mutilation and he had several surgeries to close up life-threatening wounds. We heard about Milo when he literally was hours from euthanasia, when the Veterinarian, after almost of year of tending to this miserable little creature, had given up.

Sassy was a spoiled little girl. Handled a lot and loved to pieces, living with numerous toys and people in her life she was less than thrilled when Cosmo, who was now a year old, moved into "her" room. For the first two weeks I had two unhappy birds. I could only have one bird out at a time if I was not in the room with them. Gradually things changed. We would have what I called "Cuddle fests" where I would play on the floor with both girls, folding my body over both birds, giving them mutual affection while they were touching one another. Within about three weeks both girls could be left out of their cages, unsupervised, without any difficulty. For the first two years, Sassy was the "flock leader", but by now (December 2002) Cosmo has become the alpha bird while Sassy is, surprisingly, the more demure and less demanding of the two.

Over time the girls grew accustomed to having other Cockatoos living in their room with them, while remaining a " bonded pair"...eating together, mutually preening, choosing to sleep in the same cage. And they still loved having people to interact with. While Cosmo is definitely more gregarious around people, once Sassy is introduced, both birds will go to people and sit and scream with joy...

When Milo arrived he was very quiet and withdrawn. Over the first few weeks he began to bond with some of the people here. Over time he became used to the rhythm of life surrounded by numerous birds and people. He stopped mutilating...for a while. Six months after Milo moved to the Sanctuary, The Oasis found land and packed to move. Seeing the changes, the packing and chaos, put Milo in a tailspin. The mutilation began again in earnest. When we moved to the new facility, it was obvious that he could not, at this point anyway, be an outside bird. I wanted to keep a close eye on his self-destructive behaviors so rather than put him in the bird building, I moved him into Sassy and Cosmo's room. Over the next few months, Milo gradually was accepted into their little flock. While the girls still are best buddies, now Milo is also allowed to eat with and preen them.

Normally we do not bring male Cockatoos into female Cockatoo environments. At The Oasis we have seen the results of mate aggression too often and since we do not breed, we have no desire to have these sorts of problems. However, since each of the girls weighs in the neighborhood of 700 to 800 grams, and little Milo weighs around 350 grams, we saw little danger in his ability to harm the girls.

Milo still has times where he mutilates. And there are stretches of time where he must wear a collar to keep from severely harming himself. We don't understand what is going on during those periods of time...but we do know that he is happier surrounded by his girls than if he were alone.

And all three of these birds love having humans join in their fun and games. We have not "lost" their companionship. Rather, we have the privilege of being part of their world...

Tiki and Joey

Macaws have very different temperaments than Cockatoos.

Tiki, a female Blue and Gold Macaw, arrived at The Oasis at the end of 1998. She was then sixteen years of age. She had been the pampered "pet" of a woman who had her since she was merely six months of age. Tiki was spoiled. She was loved. She had the run of the house. Her life was going very well until a new man came into the woman's life. After moving into an "adult community" and receiving complaints about the "noise", Tiki was de-voiced. (See the article on Tiki and devoicing on The Oasis website) This changed her personality and caused her to become depressed and aggressive. The woman considered euthanizing Tiki, but was encouraged to bring her to us instead. We tried placing Tiki with several other Macaws, but she had no interest in them. Instead, I became "her person" for several years. She would make a big show of preening me and rubbing her face on me when other Macaws were around, showing, by these behaviors, that she and I were a pair.

In February 2000 we took in Joey. Joey is a huge Blue and Gold Macaw, totally and irreparably plucked. She was found hanging on the vines growing on a parking structure in Central Phoenix during an extreme cold-snap when nighttime temperatures dropped into the twenties. She was stressed, dehydrated and malnourished. A wild-caught and not human-friendly bird, we have come to the conclusion that she was a breeder who had somehow escaped from her aviary. After trying unsuccessfully to locate her owner, we had her tested, quarantined, and eventually introduced her to other birds.

Tiki and Joey hated one another. For two years any time they were out of their cages at the same time, we would have to make sure that their play stands were at opposite ends of the room. If close, they would stalk one another and beak fight aggressively, although never hurting one another.

About a year ago, for some unknown reason, that changed. And instead of stalking one another, they began working in tandem, ganging up on people who came into the bird building to feed or clean. I began thinking of them as The Piranha Girls. For whatever reason, they had decided to become friends and began bonding.

The girls now live in an outdoor aviary. Tiki has allowed me to stroke her in the aviary, but if Joey is near, even that is not allowed. While I may have "lost" Tiki as a personal companion, watching them interact, knowing they have one another's support and company 24/7 is so much more rewarding to me than those few minutes or hours that I could spend with her.

Billy and Peanut

Billy is a male Yellow-Naped Amazon. He came to us from an adoption program in 1998 when it was decided that he was too aggressive to be placed in a home. Billy is at least 15-20 years old and we are not sure whether he is wild-caught or domestically reared. We do know he was around someone who was on the phone a lot...perhaps kept in a cage in an office, since he has long, on-going, one-sided telephone conversations.

Peanut is a female Blue-Fronted Amazon. She was a foundling whose owner never claimed her. She came to us later that year in 1998. Peanut has a quarantine band proving that she is wild-caught. Like Joey, we suspect that she escaped from a breeding situation. Over time she has learned to say "Hello" in my voice, but other than that she mostly speaks Amazon.

The first time Billy and Peanut met it was love at first sight. Within days of their meeting they moved into an aviary together and have been inseparable ever since. Even though they are of different species who would in all likelihood never meet in the wild, they "duet" (sing their calls) in harmony together all day long.

There are many other birds who live together, either in flock situation or as pairs at The Oasis. Some situations took years to set up, others were instantaneous. But we do believe that unless a person can dedicate significant portions of time daily to the well being of their companion animals, a companion for their companion is probably the best way to ensure the happiness of all involved.

When creating a flock environment indoors, it is best to keep separate cages for the birds, at least until they choose to share their sleeping spots. Play stands and shared areas are important. Several feeding stations are necessary to reduce squabbling, particularly when the birds are first getting to know one another.

When introducing an established bird to a new bird, I usually bring the established bird to the new bird, sitting with the established bird on the floor, and keeping the new bird in his cage. This makes the established bird feel important and allows the new bird to understand that you are okay with birds and are not likely to eat him. Remember they are prey animals and you, no matter how nice, are the predator...

Not all birds, even of same species, will like one another. We have found it is more important to the introduction of birds that they be a similar temperament rather than necessarily same species. In other words, two Conures of similar temperament, one a Nanday and the other a Cherry-Head, might get along, where two Cherry-Heads of unlike temperament might not get along.

Obviously, creating a flock does not solve all problems of keeping birds in captivity.... But it does make life easier for them, and for us, knowing they have the comfort of another same or similar species bird with whom to share their life and time. The most important things to keep in mind when deciding to caretake a Parrot living in captivity are:

1- The commitment of time, space for habitat and money for toys, nutritious food and veterinary care.
2- The ability to abide with noise and destructive behavior.
3- Long term lifestyle stability. Will job changes, marriage, or children impact on your ability to continue living with a long-lived, demanding animal?
4- Planning for the birds' future should something happen to you.


Remember, by most conservative estimates from breeders there are at least twenty million captive parrots living in homes in the United States. Adopt a deserving, needy, wonderful companion...or two.

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