"I (hope) this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

[Lodah]

Fingers and toes crossed for a really happy result! Thank you for posting the pictures! Love em!

 

[iamwhoiam]

I've used locks with keys. Set of six locks with one key worked for me since Casey, BFA, learned how to open his cage by watching Keno and I needed 3 locks for each cage. Now they are in different cages but Keno has two padlocks on the breeder door.
Had Casey for 2 years and he never opened the cage on his own until about a month after I got Keno. That's about the time she started to let herself out and he just copied her. Casey likes to observe the other birds and copy some of their behaviors and sometimes that is NOT a good thing.

 

[iamwhoiam]

Have you seen this video?

 

[iamwhoiam]

And this one...

 

[faislaq]

Hubby says he saw Puffin unlatch the door to Luv Bug's old cage yesterday.

That means we have confirmed that they have each opened at least one latch.

 

[faislaq]

Have you seen this video?

And this one...

We've seen some impressive ones, but not those two yet. They figured those out so quickly! That second video was really good. That would make a heck of a foraging toy, no?

 

[sunnysmom]

LOL. I thought the same thing the first time I found Elvis out of his cage. I must have forgot to lock it. Wrong. They're so amazingly smart. But two of them working together..... You're going to have your hands full! I'm so glad though that they're becoming friends.

 

[zoo mom]

So glad they are becoming friends.

 

[faislaq]

Puffin will still run Luv Bug off if they get too close, but that radius is getting smaller. And thankfully there's never been any pursuit from either of them, so it's more of a personal space issue and not aggression.

 

[Mockinbirdiva]

And this one...

Omg! Where there's a will ... there's a way! That's one smart too!!!

 

[faislaq]

No great strides lately, but at least no setbacks. They still rest near one another several times a day but they usually have one time a night where someone decides she needs more space and runs the other one off. It's almost always Luv Bug invading Puffin's space ever so slightly and then Puffin getting overwhelmed. We're very watchful but are doing our best to work things out for themselves. (That's hard for me!)

They were both on me a few nights ago and Puffin lunged at Luv Bug. Bug flew a lap around the room and landed in nearly the same spot. Puffin lunged again and I Luv Bug squawked and flapped over to hubby. I knew Puffin must have gotten hold of her somehow, but after inspection we realized she must have only grabbed some feathers, and not even hard enough to pull it out. Whew! Thankfully they rarely make contact, no one has been hurt and they don't pursue one another.

More often though they're eating at the same time (and have even peacefully shared a dish a few times!), preening at the same time and sleeping at the same time so at least we have the makings of some flock-like activity. If one begins, the other seems to think that's a wonderful idea and starts too. And almost every evening hubby announces to me that his "knees are warm", meaning that he has a little cockatoo tucked up asleep on each knee. That's my favorite part.

 

[TikiMyn]

Ahwww they might not be BFF’s yet, but it sounds like they do enjoy Each others company! How cute that they both sleep on hubby’s knee

 

[Lambandthimble]

That's so wonderful! I hope they become the best of friends!

 

[tka]

That's so sweet and I'm glad they're doing some flock activities together! Hopefully they'll get closer to each other with time, but even if they don't, at least they seem to enjoy each others' presence.

Bit worrying that they seem to be collaborating on their escape plans!

 

[Begone]

I think everything is perfect already.
You can have them out together. They are not trying to kill each other and they happily share your hb knees.
Yes perhaps it will be better, perhaps they will bond to each other and become best friends.
But if not, be happy for what you got. ♡
And small fights will happen, they are like us, you can't agree with everything.

 

[faislaq]

Bit worrying that they seem to be collaborating on their escape plans!

Yeah, that does worry me.

But if not, be happy for what you got. ♡
And small fights will happen, they are like us, you can't agree with everything.

We are already glad they have each other. Even without preening yet, we can tell they get a lot from being around one another.

 

[Mockinbirdiva]

It does sound like it can be a fairly peaceful friendship even if they don't touch each other but it's still early for them to become fast friends. Unlike my two crimson girls Ruby and Scarlette ... who are sisters from the same clutch ( hatched in 2009 ).... Ruby would kill Scarlette if she had a chance. Scarlette is my avatar.

 

[Nancy B]

I think it's wonderful! They're going to be so cute together I can't WAIT to hear YOUR stories!

 

[faislaq]

Lately (since the fight in the other thread) the girls have been doing better together, or at least being out together with close supervision. If we have to leave the room. Luv Bug comes with us anyway, so that's not a big change but now we take her instead of waiting for her to fly to us and follow. We don't always take Puffin because she's still reluctant to step up sometimes and we don't want to make her unless we have to. Puffin will call to us though while we're out of the room which gets Buzzard worked up to screaming so if we'll be out of the room a while we'll either wheel Puffin in with us on her night cage (doubling as her playstand) or take Buzzard with us if she's not on her night cage; if we remove part of the equation the screaming is not an issue.

While we're in the room with them we've been having the girls have out together again, though now we're more aware of the small signs that lead up to a potential fight that we missed before. For the most part they still keep away from each other, though Luv Bug wants to be near Puffin so badly. When Puffin is on my chest getting scritches, Luv Bug will walk across the top of the sofa and come down my shoulders for a closer look. She will slowly reach out with her little side-foot or start to lean in ever so slowly with her beak open towards Puffin's tail which I know will start something so we put our hands between them and move them from one another before anything starts. Puffin is very protective of her food, so we are extra watchful when we feed them and don't let them on the same surface when they're eating. Luv Bug is finally getting used to their new cage, so we are trying to get them used to going into their cages again for dinner like they did before the cage change. That has been slow going, but it will be nice when we're back on that routine.

The best news is that a few days ago they started mirroring again! The first time they preened near each other I thought it was a coincidence, but they really are back to doing things at the same time again. The sad news is kind of a long story: One of our dogs has bad allergies. I was supposed to pick up her prescriptions last Friday but didn't get there in time. I had to stretch her meds til Monday, only to find out her dermatologist's office was closed both days for new years. I was desperate because Benadryl wasn't enough to keep her from scratching her face almost bloody so I had to put her cone on. That freaked out Scotty so we decided to keep the green cheeks' cage closed. I remembered Jixny had been on prednisone before so I gave her some we had left over til I could pick up her refills. Hubby didn't hear me when I told him to take the cone off after the pred kicked in, so he ended up leaving it on her all day.

That afternoon he called me at work that Puffin was bleeding. She had gotten scared by the e-collar too, so to keep her from flying around and hurting herself hubby was putting her in her cage when she got spooked again and struggled away. Hubby tried to grab her so she wouldn't fall but ended up grabbing one tail feather which pulled out & she fell anyway. I told him to apply pressure with some cayenne or corn starch but he called right back and said it had already stopped on its own. I was relieved because that meant the feather had come clean out. Poor hubby was really upset and was beating himself up about it. I told him I'd feel bad too, but that it was an accident & that I would have done the same thing; it's a reflex to try to catch something. When I got home, hubby said she had been sleeping on top of their day cage a lot and he tried not to disturb her but that he'd moved her bowls to the top of the cage for her and that she had climbed down from the play top to eat and drink then back up to the high perch to sleep. She was holding her left wing was slightly away and down from her body but I was relived that was not in shock and was otherwise stable. She was even feeling spry enough to climb down her cage to the floor to walk over to me for cuddles and scritches then across to him for her favorite napping place on his knee. Since she was stable and seemed like her regular self except for her wing I decided to wait to bring her in to our avian vet this morning instead of taking her to the emergency animal clinic. The vet said her elbow is badly bruised but her wing isn't broken & gave her meloxicam for the pain. She said she may only need it for a few days but that it could take a couple of weeks for the bruise to completely go away.

 

[sunnysmom]

Never a dull moment with birds, right? I'm glad Puffin is okay and that the two are getting along better.

 

[Nancy B]

Omg a madhouse for sure! I didn't know bug & puffin were fighting! sorry about the poor dog!!