The Challenges of Pairing Birds

Pair bonding is always a special topic to me because I love pairing up birds for their welfare. But, no matter the situation, two babies, a baby and an adult, or two adults, it can be challenging to pair birds up and allow them to coexist. A lot of people think to put them together, give them time, do things together, it will get better eventually.

But really, when a bird is showing aggression and undesirable behaviors towards another flock member, it needs to be taken very seriously, even if no injuries happen. This is because the more an animal rehearses a behavior, the harder it is to stop.

So, if one bird is aggressing towards another constantly, then the aggressor learns that aggressive behaviors get results. The one getting picked on only seeing the aggressor as something undesirable and it can increase aggression in them towards the other bird. It decreases the pairs relationship

It took me 6 years to successfully pair Maui (sun conure) and Rosie (pineapple green cheek conure) together and 4 for Gus (maroon bellied conure) and Rosie. Jo (yellow nape amazon) and Ringo (orange wing amazon) took a few months, but Ringo is wild caught, which means it’s easier.

See even the best breeders lack giving their birds proper socialization. They pull the babies extremely young from the parents to hand rear them and they only get socialized with other babies that also don’t know how to socialize, making flocking more difficult. It makes birds not confident around others, which can lead to the aggression.

There is training for bird introductions that isn’t just “put them together and hope for the best” or “the more they’re out together, the better it will be eventually” it noises confidence and teaches communication between the two.