Advice for adding new flock members?

[polaryse]

Good evening,
Recently I've been thinking about possibly adding a new bird to my flock in the future, but I'm a little worried about how they would get along with my current birds.
I currently have two budgies (Milo and Nala) that are somewhere around a year old and a green cheek conure (Henry) thats estimated to be 4 years old. They don't get along very well, if either of my budgies gets too close to Henry, he will lunge at them and scare them off. I never leave them alone together and over time they have mellowed down a bit, but I keep thinking that if I get another bird, I might be endangering my budgies.
One of the species I'm interested in are Quakers, and I've heard they're very terrarorial. Since budgies are always very curious and nosy, I have a hard time imagining them being safe around a Quaker- or any other type of small/medium-small bird, like cockatiels or other types of conures. I was wondering if any other budgie owners have bigger territorial birds and are able to keep them out of cages together, or just in the same room. Are you ever able to train them to tolerate each other, or at least to not be around each other's cages?

 

[Zara]

@Pixiebeak has quakers, budiges and a conure, maybe she can give some insight into what that is like...

 

[Pixiebeak]

Yes quakers ,green cheeks and other species can kill or injure budgies.

My flock are all flighted ( can choose to fly away) , I went very slow , months , when introducing new birds. I have massive amount of out of cages perches, toys, food and water stations. The outside of all cages have perches, I hung perches above all the cages , plus 6 separate hanging or play stand stations around my home. So it's very difficult to resource guard, they can spread out.

I never have them out unattended. I keep cage doors shut when they are out, so no trapping another bird in the cage. I have acrylic sheets on top of cages , and the sides and tops of cages have perches on the outside to decrees ..the chance of toes bitten off or fighting .

My gcc likes and spends time with my budgies. But when they climb on her cage while she is inside she will attack them or any other bird. My quakers will also do this . Most caged birds of any species will attack another bird who lands on their Cage. Before I had acrylic on top of cages, my GCC bit off budgie toes. I had a past incident of 2 unprovoked attacks on a budgie by my GCC. It turned it this was displaced aggression, frustration, and when I fixed the cause of this I haven't had any more in years. But it's always possible. I make a habit of flock observations, and am fluid in making adjustments to space use or bottlenecks .

Quakers are a little different than the species you have . They are highly active, intelligent and social, making them prone to behavior issues on par with cockatoo, like screaming and plucking. And they just like to be vocal making noise. Looking at and listings to wild flock videos gives you the idea, plus it's the number one complaint again feral populations.

As a species general, they do not do well spending most of the day caged. A caged bored quaker is going to turn to screaming. What is the most difficult is this screaming goes on for hours and hours nonstop . My behavior screaming challenge girl screamed sun up to sun set 12 hours continuously, while eating, while flying ..it was challenging to stop. She still enjoys making lots of noise and chatter , with only greet the sun screaming ( mostly) ...

I'm emphasizing this , because it gets quakers re homed, in horrible situation of shoved into garages , basements, outside in a cage that squirrel, racoons other can reach into and harm , not a wonderful aviary,just a regular cage shoved outside. .

I love them , obviously, and they can be great companions with a lot to offer!
But you really need to take into consideration providing more activities, stimulation, attention, time out of cage, and not keeping as a solo parrot with no other parrot species in the home. I'm not talking sharing cages, just another parrot in the home , seems to be very helpful in this highly social species

 

[Pixiebeak]

@Parutti has mixed flock. A non behavior screamer, so she can share her typical level and frequency of vocalizing

 

[Pixiebeak]

@Parutti and how she did introduction, and what challenges she has with mix d flock