a wonderful and very informative thread, was looking something like this for quite a while....My post is wee bit lengthy, but i needed to tell the backgroud.,,
I had 1 lovebird, I had plans for 1 only, from childhood i adored lovebirds, specially peachfaced one, just a single one has do many colors and they are soo cute...
Well, last year, we(me &my husband) went to a petstore. I had just one preference that it has to be a male(no color preference). I had wonderful experience with male budgie before, so i was keen on getting a male baby bird. The petstore owner asked me to choose one and then he said he'd check if its a male.
I had choosen the most fearless of the lot and he said, congrats here is your male lovebird.
We named him Pogo, and he started bonding to me......but honestly the cage cleaning + chop making schedule before office was overwhelming for me. I am overly meticulous about my pets, since they are captive I could not skip any part of my daily routine even if i am down with flu, my husband cooks but its me who cleans the cage, I couldnt delegate that part of my responsibility.
Anyways, Pogo was bonding but wouldnt come out on his own, but he enjoyed my company, but he hated my husband and gave nasty bites.Then Pogo got ill.
First it was watery poop....we took her to the vet, we though we couldnt save him, he was on 5 day antibiotic, then suddenly we found an egg on the cage bottom. Turns out Pogo is a she, i was heartbroken, the only thing i didnt want was a
female bird and we got that. By then Pogo was fairly bonded and i coudnt return her. But i was terrrified of watching her get egg bound and seeing her die. My husband then stepped in and told me we have to deal with whatever comes along. If shes meant to die like that we cannot stop that, but we can try to prevent that everyway possible, and there are people who keep femake lovebird as pets, not everyone die of egg binding.It was true, he was right.
instead of trying to stop her chronic egg laying, i put a nestbox and put some fake eggs inside. that reduced her egg laying to 2 at a time. But flipside is she hardly came out of her nextbox, i hardly got to see her. She was getting very very lonely and depressed, that point i decided to get her a friend. But not a male lovebird ( i cannot deal with further baby lovebirds) or a female lovebirds ( i cannot deal with birdie fights, i have long office hours 3 days each week).....but then for one full year....i researched the net like crazy, the time i took to help streamline my schedule with Pogo. Things were not as overwhelming now, but still I was not ready to spend as much time to again to handtame and socialize with the new bird ( for Pogo it was 6 months to her even accept for from my hand).
With 350 species of parrot to choose from, it was not and easy task....they powder down birds were eliminated from my list in the very begining, firstly i am allergic secondly i could even manage that with antihistamins, but i cannot deal
with all that extra out of cage cleaning.
i shortlisted my choices to Macimillians, Blue Crown Conure, Mayers, Alexendrine, Green Cheek and Crimson Bellied.
I finally ended up with a 1.5 yr old turq gcc who was a breeder and lost his mate recently. It was ideal for me...and my lonely Pogo.
I still remember, when both of them first meet after the qurantine.....oh boy!!!!!! they absolutely hate even the sight of each other...
Now, i am left with 2 birds who cannot tolerate each other, so i need two different rooms for them in each floor.
Their food preferences and requirements are completely different and i have to make the chops different.
The poops are bigger and harder to clean....
The vocalization is lot more.....
Yet i am left with 2 lonely birds....
This all seems ok....but when i think logically, i have to follow the cleaning/chopmaking scedule for next 25 years...it is bit scary.....
Having said that, i am perfectly content with my flock....my lovebird is do intelligent yet not that cuddly...my gcc is bit dumd yet very very cuddly....between my two fids i get whatever i asked from my parrots.....i would not think of having another bird in next 25 years, provided i am still alive by then.......