Parakeets are Fighting

User Question
I have 2 parakeets that are about three years apart. Recently they haven't been getting along well. I have two views of what's happening. One is that they're just fighting and one is that the younger one is trying to play with the older one but he is not interested and they start to fight. The younger one does seem to be in the older ones face a lot.

A few important things i need to mention are that when we got the older one, he was a couple months old and we played with him a little and then just left him alone with a mirror. we then got another bird three years later that was also very young and we bought a new cage and put them both into it.

I would really appreciate it if you can give me your opinion on what's going on and what I could do about. As a miscellaneous question, when my birds are flying, how can i get them to land on my finger?

Lisa's Answer
It sounds like your older bird was unsocialized and became a loner, because he never had any interaction. Parakeets are flock creatures and really need that constant contact - either with their human "flock" or other birds. When you left him alone all that time, he sort of withdrew. So to just stick another bird into his cage that he'd never seen before - and that was much younger - was sort of rough. You should always introduce new birds to each other slowly, in separate cages. So it's no wonder that they are grumpy with each other.

I would really get either a second cage or maybe a larger cage so the older keet has somewhere to be alone. Eventually he may get used to the younger one enough that he wants to play, but he may just be a solitary type of bird now. It could take a long time to readjust him to life in a flock.

Hopefully you aren't letting the birds out if they are not finger trained! That would be a large safety risk. If they are finger trained, then they see your finger as a normal, safe landing spot. So all you do is hold it out and they'll come down to you.

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