Post by Aardman on Aug 29, 2016 1:55:11 GMT -5
Although I'm perfectly capable of trimming Trixie's wings, we decided to take her to the store where we purchased her to do the trimming. Our last bird would hold a grudge against me for weeks sometimes when I trimmed his wings so I decided not to deal with it and let her get mad at a stranger instead. I know it's better to let her have the use of her wings, but that didn't turn out so well for our last bird, and since we cannot control when somebody might stand around with a door open, I've decided it's simply not worth the risk, so the wings get trimmed.
But that's not the point of this.
It just so happened when we arrived at the store the breeder who supplies our bird happened to be there, not only that, they had several more quakers in the store, one of them a two year old blue male by the name of "Smoky." Trixie has never been in the company of another quaker and it was a new experience for her. Smoky and Trixie immediately buddied up to each other and spend nearly an hour socializing on top of his cage, snuggling up against each other, exchanging conversational squawks and occasionally touching beaks. I had to sort-of break them apart when it was time to leave.
That's Trixie in front.
Because they got along so famously my wife was thinking maybe we ought to consider adding Smoky to our home, which surprised me because usually she is the one who puts the kibosh on new pets. The breeder said if we were really serious about it, because we already have one of his birds, he would be willing to let us take Smoky and his cage home for a two - three week period of time to see if they get along as well over the long haul as they did today, the idea being, since Trixie has a pretty big cage, the two of them could stay in the one cage, so we wouldn't need another. If we tried this we would, of course, keep Smoky in his own cage and only let the two of them socialize with us around to monitor it and only move them into one cage together if they are agreeable.
There are several virtues to this situation, but I also have a number of concerns, mainly, if the two birds became fast friends (which is sort-of the point of this) then possibly they wouldn't really be all that interested in relating to us and may, in fact develop hostilities and / or jealousies. As I have noted elsewhere on here, Trixie is an especially sweet, docile bird - simply doesn't bite and wants to hang out with us all the time. I would hate for that to change. The breeder assured us as long as we made sure to get both birds out every day and work / play with them that they would remain sociable, loving pets.
So before we go any further with this, I thought it a good idea to get some other opinions. Surely some of you have two or more quakers. Can they be kept together in one cage? Do they remain friendly when paired up like this? What am I overlooking? Anything?
But that's not the point of this.
It just so happened when we arrived at the store the breeder who supplies our bird happened to be there, not only that, they had several more quakers in the store, one of them a two year old blue male by the name of "Smoky." Trixie has never been in the company of another quaker and it was a new experience for her. Smoky and Trixie immediately buddied up to each other and spend nearly an hour socializing on top of his cage, snuggling up against each other, exchanging conversational squawks and occasionally touching beaks. I had to sort-of break them apart when it was time to leave.
That's Trixie in front.
Because they got along so famously my wife was thinking maybe we ought to consider adding Smoky to our home, which surprised me because usually she is the one who puts the kibosh on new pets. The breeder said if we were really serious about it, because we already have one of his birds, he would be willing to let us take Smoky and his cage home for a two - three week period of time to see if they get along as well over the long haul as they did today, the idea being, since Trixie has a pretty big cage, the two of them could stay in the one cage, so we wouldn't need another. If we tried this we would, of course, keep Smoky in his own cage and only let the two of them socialize with us around to monitor it and only move them into one cage together if they are agreeable.
There are several virtues to this situation, but I also have a number of concerns, mainly, if the two birds became fast friends (which is sort-of the point of this) then possibly they wouldn't really be all that interested in relating to us and may, in fact develop hostilities and / or jealousies. As I have noted elsewhere on here, Trixie is an especially sweet, docile bird - simply doesn't bite and wants to hang out with us all the time. I would hate for that to change. The breeder assured us as long as we made sure to get both birds out every day and work / play with them that they would remain sociable, loving pets.
So before we go any further with this, I thought it a good idea to get some other opinions. Surely some of you have two or more quakers. Can they be kept together in one cage? Do they remain friendly when paired up like this? What am I overlooking? Anything?
If they do hit it off, and you really want to maintain your current relationship with Trixie, don't put them in the same cage. They will wind up bonded to each other, and may try to start a family. That doesn't mean you can't have a relationship with both of them, but things will likely be different. 
