# Pair or Trio??



## Cola'sMom (Apr 26, 2010)

Will a pair of cockatiels get along better than a trio in general? Bar their personality differences.


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## Ezzie (Jan 19, 2010)

generally yes, A trio will have an "odd one out" that may get picked on or generally left out. A trio can also be a problem if the pair of teils are bonded, the new bird will be harrassed.

There are people however that have 3 birds as apose to 2 so they might be better off telling you about it.

If you are thinking of getting another bird to make 3 though, remember all birds must be equal and all must get equal attention etc, even if one is pushy, OTHERWISE you will create issues in the flock from favouring.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

There is nothing wrong with a trio as long as they all get equal attention. I have 7 and there really isn't an odd man out because there are so many lol.


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## bird brain (May 30, 2010)

If it's going to be two males and a female I would strongly not recommend a trio.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

I agree with bird brain because the girl will probably bond to one male which could cause the other to become aggressive.


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## Renae (Feb 9, 2008)

When I first got into Cockatiels, I had 2 females to start with, then I got two males, it worked out well and they were fine.


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## Jenny10 (Feb 27, 2010)

It really depends on the birds, if you have two and they are very happy together, then they could both pick on the new one.

However if you have two and although they may be fine in the cage together one may be stronger than the other and bully the other a bit, so by adding a 3rd bird could help with this issue in that the strong bird will have to focus his hers attention on two birds rather than one which dramatically will reduce the stress on that one bird.

It is natural that there is a pecking order, Tira out of my two Hand reared ones is the stronger and although I have two food bowls in their cage I will see her at times decide she wants the bowl that Coco is on and Coco will have to move which she does, but that is about as aggressive as it gets with my two, Coco knows Tira is stronger and just moves to the other bowl, I cant see the difference in the bowls myself, I keep both bowls topped up the same, so in my case I don’t think it would do any harm to introduce another hand tame bird (female) if I wanted to, it would just give Tira another bird to focus on as well, and Coco will get a little break, although my two are pretty good together anyway.

But whatever you decide, always make sure each bird as a food dish, as they all tend to eat the same time as each over or in my birds case as me, as long as they all have a food bowl there shouldn’t be two much trouble.

Jenny


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