Introducing youg lovebird to older ones

[droppy]

The youngster is in an old cage of Bella, sometimes when she's flying, Bella goes on top of the youngster's cage (we named her Wilma, hopefully it's a girl as we were told) and acts again aggressively.

We are trying to let them both fly in the room, as I write, Bella is flying in our bedroom while Wilma stays in the cage and chirping to Bella. Wilma can also get outside of her cage now, but either doesn't know how, or doesn't want.

Hi, quick update on this one and a kind request for some advice.

Bella (who is actually a male) and Wilma (female) have been sharing the same cage now for 1.5yrs. Bella is our 8yr old lovie,, while Wilma is only 1.5 yrs old. There have been ups and downs, as we were expecting with a dominant female, but overall they were doing fine together.

Bella’s mate for 7 yrs passed away and she was really sad by himself (he’s a very sociable bird), so we decided to get a new mate - I know not ideal scenarios as Wilma is so much younger, but being a baby when she joined we thought she can be ‘trained’ in Bella’s ways and they will get along just fine. Which they did for most of the time, except recently we are a bit worried because Wilma is getting a bit aggressive towards Bella.

What worries us most is that she will excessively preen Bella around the area at the back of his neck (Wilma seems well intentioned but we think she’s not gentle enough and Bella starts chirping and trying to escape after a while of letting her preen the area, as it seems to hurt him). If Wilma doesn’t get her way and Bella tries to escape, she will bite/catch him by the wing or leg so he won’t go (like saying ‘stay here, can’t you see i want to love you?’. We checked the area at the back of Bella’s neck and a feather is missing and he seems irritated/reddish. Also, because she’s in her teens, Wilma wants to mate. She will open her wings wide to invite Bella, but he’s not interested. So instead Wilma will hump Bella, which is a bit annoying as Bella is quite submissive, has arthritis and last thing she needs is for Wilma to climb on top of her.

We tried separating them and ironically both are extremely sad when we do so, they chirp and call at each other and Wilma will practically stay still and refuse to do anything for ages (not even eat) when they’re apart.

I know Wilma is a girl so she’s dominant and territorial - she has to eat first after they go back in their cage after flying outside, she will often chase Bella from the food dishes etc. but they both crave company and want to spend time with each other, they have their good moments of kissing, preening, feeding each other and sitting still one next to the other sleeping etc. We’re just afraid one day we’ll find Bella dead or injured because Wilma went to far.

Wilma seems well intentioned and is extremely desperate for attention and affection. She will do anything to get our attention and we suspect that we are not doing well when taking Bella out of the cage after one of the fighting episodes or telling her off in a loud voice when she attacks Bella. She has a sad/hurt look in her eyes when we do this, so she might be competing with Bella for our attention. Wilma is quite tame now, flight recall trained, will sit on iur hands, head, shoulder etc, eat out of our hand - she is a bit of biter though. We think she’s just a bit misunderstood and wants individual attention, especially as having Bella for 8yrs, he’s attached to us, we are clearly part of his flock. I even suspect for a while when his mate for 7yrs died and my husband stayed with him at home for about two weeks, he bonded with him as his new mate. But then Bella gets jealous too. Bella’s a bit of an imitator and wants everything Wilma wants. If Wilma plays with a toy, Bella wants it too etc. Not sure if Bella is happy though as he will proactively fly to another perch if he even sees Wilma coming that direction. With his leg problems he does a lot of running around the cage, so another stress on top of everything. But when we separate them it’s worse than everything.

So not sure what we can do to:
a) correct/improve Wilma’s behaviour
b) better to separate them definitively or keep them together

Any advice/ideas are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Maxie]

When I introduced my Gabe to my Max, Gabe was a year old and Max was five years old. I was worried at first but took Linda’s advice and took the introduction really slow.

I quarantined Gabe for a month before they had any close contact. I would bring Max into Gabes room and show him from a distance. They chirped at each other and Max was really intrigued.

After the quarantine was over, I would let Max sit on my finger and look at Gabe inside his cage. At first Max tried to take jabs at Gabe but over time they’ve become best buddie and are inseparable.

The only time they’re apart is when they sleep. Max still wants to sleep in his own original cage by himself. So, Gabe sleeps in his own cage by himself. They’re happy so I don’t push them to sleep in the same cage together. The only issue is that I have three cages in the kitchen...lol. They’re never in any of them during the day.