pair or putting them together..

Question
hi chrys, good day...
im christian but friends call me ian...
i love birds really, and i care a more than a dozen of parrakets for a couple of years now and i put them on cage by pair... and recently a friends of mine give me some of his african lovebirds and a cockatiel...
for years that i care for parraket, putting them in cages by pair doesnt really works, reason, i dont know...
and so with this im thinking to put them together in one big cage about 3 meters wide by 3 meters length and by 2.8 meters hight, the parraket, african lovebirds, and cockatiel... is this a wise idea or not..? what are the circumstance of putting them together..? well this three species get along with each other..? with regards to nesting, i've been using nest box yet still i seems it doesnt work out so good considering that we have a tropical climate down here in the philippines.. and so im thinking of providing them a coconut husk instead of nest box, is it a good idea..? consediring that though coconut husk is a bit i guess that a nest box yet its space inside is a bit small compare to a nest box..?
if you have more idea and suggestion aside from the question i have above, i would be glad to hear them from you... thanks...
tel next mail, hope to hear from you tara, take care always, GOD BLESS YOU...

Answer
Hi, Ian.  Thanks for posting your questions.

I have to ask you, Ian, what are your plans for your parakeets?  Do you want to breed them...is this why you paired them up in individual cages?  Are you sure you have male/female pairs paired up (males have blue ceres; females white/brown/tan ceres)?  Keets are very prolific breeders.  95% of the time, if you put a male/female keet together with some type of nestbox, they will mate, as long as they pair-bond first and are satisfied with the safety of their housing (they won't lay eggs if they think their eggs/babies will be unsafe).  Sometimes though, a pair of birds do not like the matches we make for them and they will not mate.  Keets tend to breed better when other pair-bonded keets are housed close to them.  I like to house all my keets together until they choose their own mates, then place them in individual cages (unless I want to produce babies of certain phenotypes, then I pair up according to the phenotype I want to produce).  

To answer your questions, putting all these birds together in one large cage might work as long as they all get along well together.  You might find the lovebirds will pick on the other birds and the keets might pick on the tiels.  The problems with doing this are that the birds with larger beaks can seriously injure the others when birdie arguments crop up, are they all on the same diets (do you have the tiels and lovebirds on different diet than the keets), because of their different sizes you would have to have many different size perches in the cage, a good variety of toys (different types, sizes), etc., etc.  I personally would not house the lovebird(s) with the others, and I would have to seriously consider whether I would put the keets in with the tiels (keets drive tiels crazy picking on them).   These species can get along, but it depends on the individual personalities of each of the birds.  It's one of those situations where you can try, but you'd have to watch them carefully to see how they get along together.  An injury can occur to a bird while you are away from home and an injured bird can go from bad to worse within minutes.  If you aren't home, you can't help.  If you are breeding the keets, the best thing is for each pair to have their own cage.

Keets will nest in just about anything!  Thus, the coconut husk might work well.  Offer them several different options in their cage at the same time and let them choose the one they want.  They will pick the one that they feel provides their potential offspring the most safety.  Perhaps you can place the hust horizontally instead of vertically providing more space inside.

I have a website that might provide you with more information if you want to visit:
http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html

If you need more help, please come back.

Chrys