Housing Budgies & Cockatiel together ...

Shadow

Regular Member
From day 1 of taking on my Gran's Budgie (followed by a 2nd one ... Happy & Chatty), I accepted and expected to always have to cage the budgies and Ollie Cockatiel separately.  However, over the last couple of months, I've been wondering if they might accept being caged together, in a suitably sized cage of course. I know the advice is absolutely not, but over the past few weeks I've started to wonder if there are any success stories out there. 


They are all let out together every day for a good few hours, and what I have noticed them doing over the past couple of months is going back into the same cage when they are ready to go in.  I then have to remove the interloper(s) and put them in their own cage.  When they are out, they all tend to perch together and although there is some bickering sometimes (usually the budgies between each other), on the whole they seem to all get along and are quite happy being together.


This has got me thinking about possibly housing them all together ... it would be in the Rainforest Guyana (largest I could find with 1cm bar spacing), but before I do, I was wondering if there is anyone at all out there that has successfully housed budgies & cockatiels together.


Thoughts and opinions would be much appreciated please :)
 
by the sounds of it Mel they are a little flock and would live happily together, I know people that keep budgies and tiels in the same aviary with no issues, Martin on here has a budgie who lives with a teil and a kakariki, I have a Senegal and a conure who live together, that started by them spending their time together outside the cage and following each other around, it sounds like they all get along so don't see a prob see what others have to say :) :thumbsup:
 
as long as not breeding I think would be fine. I would make sure you have 2 drinkers and 2 feeders so no one can dominate resources. I keep my cockatiels in aviary with budgies in summer.
 
I have cockatiels and budgie plus lovebird in my outdoor aviary all quite happy together i also used to have kakariki's out there without any trouble BUT I don't want mine to breed and usually have to stop such things going on so that does help a lot, they all live quite happily together as a flock. All i would say is make sure that there is heaps of room for everybody to get away from each other if they want too, multiple food and water supplies just as sunnyring said.  But the other thing is that the introduction to them all meeting is not by you putting them all into a cage together the cockatiel may be freaked out by suddenly having little short houses hurtling around and visa versa. Make your introductions in a "neutral" area where none of them have dominance / knowledge it makes the basic instincts come out of the flock behaviour ie if you don't have your own species available to join forces with as their is safety and security in numbers then fine gather your own gang or borrow somebody else's :thumbsup:  
 
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Thank you all for you replies :)  I spent a bit more time searching the internet, and it seems there are plenty of people out there with Budgies and Tiels living together!  I had always thought that it should not be done under any circumstances!  The cage would be the Guyana, which has 4 feeder bowls and they are all male so should be not breeding jealousy.  I will give it a bit more thought before taking the final plunge :)  
 
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Thank you all for you replies :)  I spent a bit more time searching the internet, and it seems there are plenty of people out there with Budgies and Tiels living together!  I had always thought that it should not be done under any circumstances!  The cage would be the Guyana, which has 4 feeder bowls and they are all male so should be not breeding jealousy.  I will give it a bit more thought before taking the final plunge :)  

If you do decide to go ahead with it please keep a suitable cage back should you need to separate them again.


It can work in the right size space but a lot depends on the personality of each bird.


They may be happy out the cage together but might decide they dont like spending 24/7 together.


Weve kept mixed avairies in the past with tiels but always kept a close eye, budgies can be little bullies lol.
 
My plan would be to keep both of my existing cages for around a month and if they are settled, I will sell them, if not, I will sell the big one.  It could land up being an expensive exercise!  Even though they are going into each others cages at the moment, I wouldn't want to confine them in a small space.  I need a loan of a big cage :laugh:


Edited to add ... they would still be spending most of the day out of the cage, so it will mainly be first thing in the morning and later in the afternoon before bed.
 
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I think what your doing and planning is fine. I have budgies and cocktails in the same shed but there in different parts but seem to like to talk to each other. 
 
In my living room my budgies have full freedom but will always go in the cockatiels cage at night.  the spacing on the cage is wide enough for them to fit through.  in my bird room they are both free and providing you have the space there should not be a problem.
 
Mine are in large cages but come out to fly every day. I am getting aviary attached to my shed soon. I know they can get along just fine.
 
I have decided to take the plunge and have got a Rainforest Guyana on order ... this is the largest cage I could find with 1cm bar spacing.  Scarlett is waiting for a shipment of them and as soon as they arrive, one has my name on it (or should that be Ollie, Happy & Chatty's name on it!)  :)    As well as the 4 bowls it comes with, I also have extra clip on bowls so will make sure there are plenty of eating options!  I was going to put Budgie seed in one bowl, Cockatiel food in another, and a mix of both the foods in a 3rd bowl. 


Fingers crossed it does all work out, but if not, I will bring their old cages back out :)  
 
that sounds like a really good thing with the extra bowls :)  I've kept tiels and budgies together plus kakarikis over the years but i never wanted to breed with them so things never became and issue so long as they have lots of room to stay away from each other. Currently there are tiels, a budgie and the ever dreaded lovebird living quite happily together. I would not recommend anybody keeps a pair of lovies with tiels and budgies as soon as lovies get into breeding mode then they get ruddy dangerous to other birds. I always said if the one lovie i have gets even ratty with any of the residents then it goes full stop and end of story but the little perisher has been good as gold and so stays  :laugh:


I never wanted a lovie but he flew though and open window into my house so i had to catch him up and do something ...i say he i am not sure if its male or female.....  he was advertised for a year but nobody came for him and nobody offered him a home so he stayed.  :dntknw: after a few months i decided to try him in the aviary and there he has been ever since :)  
 
Dizzy, he is a boy.  if he were a girlie lovie then trouble would have kicked off! boy lovebirds are far sweeter natured then girls in my experience.  I know when I tried to get 4 lovebirds to live as a colony the boys were no problem- the girls were vicious and I had to break up arrangement very quickly.   I only have one pair now and I would have prefered for them to live in aviary but the aggression means a no go- also the fact female lovebirds go through wood like a chainsaw and my wooden aviary wouldn't stand a chance!
 
This one does gnaw like a demented beaver and it was a wood aviary the new aviary its going to need a welding kit  :laugh:   This is the bird that tried to sit on the tiels nest and do some incubation duties the year before last when the little perishers decided to try and sneak some eggs past me i no longer breed birds and these are the residue of my breeding stock plus unwanted ones from elsewhere, they're all errr as my friend who is still a breeder said "stick ancient" and he did ponder if they had decided to live forever  :biggrin:  suits me fine  :thumbsup:


Don't get me wrong this lovie can be a trouble maker to a degree but it has never injured any of the others it just hurtles around spooking them every now and then or when they are asleep it slowly sneaks up on them and pulls their tail feathers!! But the saving grace seems to be there are no other lovies in the flock nor will there ever be!  :laugh:


How people have them as house birds is beyond me little with huge fecking voices it can drown out the entire flock of tiels its gob is that big!!! 
 
lol I never see my two- they spend 99% of time in nest box so dead quiet. To extent I do sometimes peep in box to check still alive! destructive mind- they shred all paper (I give them documents I need destroyed)and go though perches at a shocking speed, I am forever cutting them new perches from willow tree.  
 
I will be putting in tree branches I never have normal perches in there its always apple and willow usually about half a fecking large tree! So little buzz-saw-beak will have plenty to be occupied with but just not the ruddy aviary frame this time  :laugh:


Am very lucky there are fishing ponds at the other end of the village and the man who owns them has always let me go gather willow and saw branches off the trees its a very large lake system and there are approx 50 large fully grown willow trees  :thumbsup:
 
I met a lady last year who a few years ago had got her dream and got a pretty hexagonal wooden aviary and filled it with a small colony of lovebirds ... within 12 months she had to shut down aviary and relocate birds to cages as the little so and so s had utterly destroyed her pretty artistic aviary!  they really are obsessive chewers.
 
:laugh:  the thing is though have you ever noticed how exact and precise it all is when they chew? all a certain length all a certain width hmmm very exact 
 
oh yes, all paper work shredding 2 mil wide and 6 cm long. never any deviation.  they are good little shredders and no one wants to put hand in their nest box to retrieve pieces as they  guard that nest to death ,  when I do crack and empty their horrible mass they have hoarded its a glove situation as they have amazingly sharp bite as well as strong one and have no worries about biting to defend the hoard!
 
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