G'day everyone!!

[jaydee7476]

G'day everyone,
Just to introduce myself and say a quick hello. I have had a look around the site and I'm very impressed. I've picked up a lot of great information and advice and being new to the hobby it's just what I need.
My wife and I recently bought a beautiful male alexandrine (I will post photos as soon as I get some). He is 5 months old. He is still adjusting to his new surroundings. Would like to know if he would settle in better if he had a mate or is he better off by himself. I do have a cage large enough to house two but not sure if getting another one is a good thing or a bad thing at this stage.
Any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated

Cheers.

[avinet]

Hi and welcome to the Forum

Alexandrines are great birds, we have 10 of them living in our house all as tame pets. The oldest is around 20 now.

To answer your question about whether to have one or two we perhaps need a bit more information, particularly how much time will you both be spending in the house and how much will he be left alone? And how tame is he - will he happily step up onto your hand both when out of the cage and in the cage? Is he happy to sit with you, while you watch TV for instance?

We have found that there are no problems with having more than one Alex - they have remained just as friendly to us as they have matured and aged as they were as babies.

Actually I might correct that statement - there are problems Two make more noise than one! Two can do more damage with chewing than one. And 10 multiply those problems ten-fold We have a lot of damaged furniture And I won't even talk about remotes!

Also two - if one is a female, will at some stage likely want to breed, and their breeding instincts can be very strong, with some careful management often needed during the spring. We have 5 females in our 10 and there are some major hassles each spring with hormonal females searching out possible breeding sites and defending any likely one to the death.

If you would like to get a second one, and you don't want to breed, then I would suggest getting another male - avoids the whole hormonal female situation every spring. Two males will almost always be great friends with each other. Two of our male (10+ years old) are inseparable, and would far rather be with each other than any of the females.

Finally I will include a photo of 11 Alex's waiting for their shower - with apologies to those who have seen it before. It is of 11 Alex's since we sadly lost one last spring as a result of those breeding hormone arguments

cheers,

Mike

[jaydee7476]

Thanks Mike for taking the time out to answer my post, I really appreciate it. Well yesterday my wife and I went out and got our alexandrine another companion. I think we made the right decision. My original Alex is 5 months old (male) and our new one is 12 weeks. The younger one has been hand raised and a lot more out going but I think he helping my other Alex come out of his shell a bit more. They weren't too sure of each other at first but now they are inseparable.

[avinet]

Sounds good - and we look forward to some photos!

cheers,

Mike