Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 7/17/2006

Question
my cockatiel is about 14 months old. hi is a male pied cockatiel named Mackie. before i got him, he was in a large glass tank with at least ten other birds. i think he may be lonely. i want to get him a companion. i don't want baby birds, so i'm afraid to get a female. is there another species that he would get along with, preferrably one that has a somewhat low noise level?  

Answer
Hi, Heather.  Thanks for posting.

How do you know your pied tiel is male?  Do you have DNA sexing paperwork to prove this?  Pied tiels are often difficult to sex unless the person doing the sexing has much experience with tiels and sexing the different color mutations.  Y

You could still get a tiel of the opposite sex or even one of the same sex and not have babies.  Most tiels won't breed without a nesting box set up on their cage.  If you don't put up a nesting box, chances are they won't mate.  However, there is a chance the female could lay eggs on the cage bottom, but it's rare for tiels to do this.  You'd be safe with a tiel of the same sex, as long as you can be assured of the sex of the tiel you currently have (and the other one you would choose).  

How long have you had Mackie and what makes you think he is lonely?  I think all caged birds get lonely for other birds at some point, but the best pet birds are single birds in the home (birds prefer other birds to humans).  When put with other birds, a pet bird will likely be more friendly to the other bird than to their human owner.  If you don't have any druthers about you and Mackie losing the relationship you have together, then you'd be safe getting another bird.  

In trying to answer your question, I can recommend several species of birds you culd try, however, this in no way can guarantee that Mackie will get along with the bird you bring home.  It depends on the individual personalities of each bird...it isn't a species-related question.  In other words, I could tell you tiels and parakeets get along fairly well with each other, but this doesn't necessarily mean Mackie will get along with the particular parakeet you would choose or vice versa.  It would depend on the particular parakeet's personality and how well Mackie and that particular parakeet would get along together.  Not all tiels and parakeets get along well together!  Some parakeets like to pick on tiels and some don't.  

Same with noise level.  Some parrots of a particular species are louder than others of the same species.  I guess what I'm trying to say on either is that making general statements about particular species of parrots is guess work at best because each parrot is as individual as humans are!  When selecting parrots, we take a big risk getting a particular bird we would hope that bird will be.  You can only tell so much about a bird when you look at one at the pet shop, parrot breeder's house, or other.  How they will behave once you take the bird home depends on many factors and your skills at interacting with the bird.

Whatever you do, it's best to buy a young, just-weaned baby and raise that baby the way you want it to be.  Buying an older bird that was previously owned is buying a bird raised according to the way the previous owner(s) wanted the bird to be as an adult.

Do you have a cage large enough to accommodate 2 birds?  If not, this is something else you'd need to consider.     

You have some things to think about before making a decision/choosing aother bird.  If you could answer my questions above, I'll try to help more.  I don't particularly recommend housing different species of parrots in the same cage.  There are usually too many differences to do this successfully unless the cage or aviary is very large.  My main concern is the type of injuries one species could inflict on another due to beak size, body size, species differences, etc.

Chrys