Hello there!

Later this month I'm adopting 2 male cockatiels. The current owner has no idea if they are related at all. He believes they are 4 years old

I'm going to name them Statler and Waldorf.

I'm moving them with the aviary and all, which measures 1m by 2m60 and is 2m high. (or 3.28ft by 8.53ft and 6.43 ft high -hope the conversions are right-)

I've seen them both already and they look healthy. As far as colors go I'd say they are both normal grey's.

Now here's my questions:

Is that aviary big enough to add 2 hens?

Will there be fighting if I do?

Should I keep them separate from the rest of my aviary (canaries and zebra finches) or allow them to mix in? (I'm not keen about putting them with the budgies)

What colours should I look for in the hens, I heard the normal grey is dominant, will I get other mutations if I add Whitefaces?

Any other pointers?

Björn

Love the names - I'm old enough to remember the Muppet Show lol.

Yes, that aviary sounds plenty big to me. Whether there will be any fighting or not depends on the personalities of the individual birds. They might pair up just fine with the hens, or they might not like the hens at all, or they might decide that they both like the same hen. It's a nonstop soap opera with cockatiels.

It's good not to mix them with budgies. The budgies are smaller but they tend to be more aggressive than cockatiels so the cockatiel tends to get the worst of it.

As for mixing with other species, once again it depends on the personality of the individual birds. I know someone who keeps a dozen cockatiels and about a hundred zebra and society finches in the same aviary with no problems. These are breeding birds too, but the cockatiels don't have any interest in the finch nests and vice versa.

Most cockatiels have splits, meaning that they carry the gene for a mutation but don't show this color themselves. So even with two normal greys you might get some babies that are visual for a mutation. The sex-linked mutations (lutino, pearl, cinnamon) are pretty easy to get - if the father bird has the gene you will get daughters in that color no matter what the mother looks like. Whiteface and pied are ordinary recessive mutations, so both parents have to have the gene in order to get babies who are visual. If either of these males is split to whiteface, you will get some whiteface babies if you pair him with a whiteface hen.

BTW having a few yellow feathers on the back of the head is a tickmark (sign) indicating that a cockatiel is split to pied. So if any of your birds have markings like this you have the potential to get pied babies. A bird with a pied split doesn't always have the tickmark, so you might be able to get pied babies even if you don't see this sign.

Thx a lot! I'll have a look for whiteface hens aged 2 to 3 years. If I can't find any I might go for younger ones.
Any how I'll keep the hens in the aviary with canaries and finches to start off with. They'll be able to climb the aviary with my males to interact with them. I'll see how much they like eachother then make a decision to put them together.

EDIT: FO FOUR changed to GO FOR

Im hoping all goes well!

That sounds like a great plan. With cockatiels, the hens tend to be gentler and less aggressive than the males (it's the opposite in budgies), so they're even less likely to fight with the canaries than a male would be.

I'll keep you all posted on when I get the 2 muppets (maybe I'll put up some pictures)

I just sent the owner an email suggesting him for some dates to move them after a wee dram

Statler and Waldorf have arrived!

Didn't take any pictures yet since I have other chores (cooking dinner for the mrs is one), and I want to put the aviary where they'll reside in up ASAP. But not before I disinfect it first.

So I was busy scrubbing away instead of taking pics!

If I find the time I'll put up pictures in a 'the making of' style, would you guys like that?

I'm lucky to have them! They're beautifull and fun to watch/listen to.
My wife likes them too, so she might not give me the look anymore when I breng all the feedingpots and drinkingfountains in to scrub... lol

Of to work tomorrow, and after that I'll stop at a breeder to pic up the first female!

No luck in finding a second one yet though... Most of the breeders only have chicks which they don't know the gender of yet. And I really don't want to get another male to get attached too and then have to trade in later...

Woohoo! I love getting new birds. My last one was Poppy, and it seems like it's been forever since I've had the new bird rush.

Hope all is going well....
( like the bit you have to cook lunch)
Yep all men should!!

Oh all is going well for sure. I cook every day, and she hasn't died yet (we're together from 1996 but we started living together since 2003. So I've been cooking for 12 years now...)

So I finished scrubbing the pannels I think I'll use in my aviary and decided to grab the camera before fitting them together.

Step one: the three front pannels in a row:


Step two: Fitting the sidepannel to the first front pannel:



Step three: adding the pannel with food-tray (notice the building inspector ?)


Inspection of the work in progress by mrs Tiggy (the female I picked up today, who could very well turn out to be mr. T, but I'll have to wait another couple months to be sure, or do that DNA test-


Step four: Making sure the pannels don't tip over after taking carefull advise from the building inspector


Step five: adding the last pannel, the door (notice mrs Tiggy already inside)


I still have to add some wood inbetween my existing wiring so I can screw the pannels onto that. I won't be installing the roofpiece, but I'll augment the pannels using some blue stone I've got lying around.

I also need to install the sloped part of the first pannel on the side and a center slat on the pannel with food-tray to keep it all in place.

And I almost forgot, but here's a quick snap I took from Statler and Waldorf waiting for their aviary to be put back together.


And here's (what I hope will be) mrs Tiggy:




Update will come in tomorrow, I hope.