3 birds together and why is one following the other everywhere

Question
QUESTION: We have 3 birds, a cockatiel, a sun conure and a green cheeked conure.  We started with Buddy the cockatiel, then the Sun.  They lived in separate cages next to each other.  We let them out together and they really didn't interact together much.  A little while after getting my green cheeked conure we put the cockatiel and him together.  They seemed to get along and while out playing they all interacted together fine.  We have recently put them all together and things were well, then the little guy (green cheeked conure) and the Sun began cuddling and hanging out and the cockatiel was left out.  They began playing and squabbling at times; not sure if this is play behavior or fighting.  Now the cockatiel is suddenly following The sun around the cage, staying extremely close and has even wanted out with her when my husband took the sun out, but he bit my husband immediately after coming out ( the sun was on his shoulder and my husband put him on his other shoulder)  We thought possibly he (my husband) was in the way, according to the cockatiel and that was why.  any ideas what is going on here and should we separate them all again?

ANSWER: Hi, Maureen.

I need more details.  How old are each of these birds?  How long have you had them?  Do you know the sexes of these birds?  How big is the cage they are all in?  How long did you have the tiel before you got the sun and then how long after the sun arrived did you get the green cheek?  Are any of these birds bonded to either you or your husband?  Which of the birds seem to be "bonded" to each other if any seem to be bonded?

The more details you can provide about a situation, the better I'm able to help.

Thanks.

Chrys

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: thanks for replying; The cockateil is almost 2 years old; have had him 1 1/2 years (he was 3 mo. when we got him) the sun is one year; have had her since she was 3 mo. also so 9 months ago we got her, and the green cheek is 5 mo. old. we have had him for 2 months. do not for sure know the sexes...but the cockateil we believe is a male, the sun we beleive is a female. the sun is bonded to my husband, the teil to myself and the green cheek is bonded to myself also.  I beleive the sun and the green cheek are bonded; I'm thinking the teil wants to be with the sun and she isn't intersted. their cage is about 36x 24 x 24--thanks for the help, Maureen

Answer
Hi again, Maureen.

You have an interesting situation going on here and you probably have several different things going on at the same time!  Any birds that are housed together will have bouts of squabbling, fussing with each other, etc.  This is perfectly normal.  They establish a hierarchy and one tends to dominate the others, they might argue over perching spots, food, toys, etc.  Also know that in most situations, birds prefer other birds to humans.  

I'm not sure the cage is big enough, depending on how much other stuff you have inside the cage.  Birds that are housed in too small a cage tend to squabble more with each other and are not as happy as birds in a large enough cage.  You might need to take a close look at cage size and acquire a larger cage if necessary (or somehow merge one or more cages together for a large single setup).  Since you had the tiel first, this bird may have bonded to you/your hubby (if the bird is tame).  Then you brought in the sun, so the tiel had competition for your time/attention.  Then came the green cheek.  They all might be jealous of each other for your time/attention.  Be sure to spend equal amounts of time with each bird.

Since the conures are the same subspecies, they may prefer to spend more time with each other than the tiel.  If so, the tiel then feels left out, like a third wheel.  You may want to consider acquiring another tiel.  However, it's not impossible for these 3 birds to get along together depending on the individual personalities of each of the birds.  If the sun is bonded to your husband, the sun is going to "protect" your hubby from the other birds when your hubby and the sun are together.  If the tiel likes the sun, when the sun was on your hubby's shoulder, he (your hubby) was coming in between the tiel and the sun, thus, the tiel bit him.  Same goes for you with the tiel and green cheek.  The tiel and green cheek will be jealous of each other for your attention.  This may result in squabbles between the birds.  If the sun and green cheek are bonded, then the tiel won't be "accepted" by either of the other two birds.  

With the differing ages of your birds, the 5-month old green cheek is still a baby and probably is just trying to see where s/he fits in with the others.  The tiel, being the older, knows more about life in general, and at 2 yrs of age, is becoming sexually mature, and might be looking for a mate/companionship of a single bird.  This might be why s/he's following the sun around, considering the green cheek is so young...the green cheek might not be as accepting of the tiel as the sun might be.

Bottom line - I think your birds are jealous of each other over you and your hubby's time/attention.  They are afraid one may get more attention than the other.  In addition, since birds prefer other birds to humans, and since an animal's sole purpose in life is to reproduce, the birds are trying to pair up with each other.  Not so much the green cheek since he's still pretty young...s/he's probably a bit confused over all the commotion!  Just be sure to treat each bird equally, ensure they have enough space, reward positive behavior and never reward negative behavior (in teaching your birds what's acceptable and not acceptable behavior), you may want to refrain from handling a single bird in front of the others or do so purposely to try and teach your birds that each will be treated equally.  In doing the latter, you should expect some issues, but handle them correctly.  It's OK if your birds bond to each other for companionship, but be aware if 2 do bond, the other will feel left out and may require more of your attention in order for everything to balance out.  How you handle this situation depends on the personalities of the individual birds involved.  What you need to do is learn as much as possible about parrot behavior so you know how to deal with each situation as it comes up.  Because your birds are of different species/subspecies, they won't mate with each other, so I don't believe you'll have a problem here, but they could bond as companions to each other.

My website has lots of general information:  www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html.  Another good website is www.birdchannel.com.

Chrys