Q & A, Imperiled Green Macaws
local wildlife agency.
Q. I am writing in the hope that you can help me with
two wild birds I have recently acquired. One is an Indian
Mynah we rescued from a cat. He/she is amazingly feisty and
thriving on insectivore mix & baby food. The other (caught
in a fence with a dog about to eat it) is amazingly young
and I am not sure what it is. The local vet thinks it could
be a noisy mynah - WIRES won't take it because the vet isn't
sure if it's native or not & to avoid the poor little thing
being 'put to sleep' I've said we'll take it.
What I'm wondering is whether we can put it in with our
Indian Mynah or if this would be dangerous. The new little
one has mauve grey legs/beak, brownish gray down and his
wings have vague yellow lines around the ends. Its chirp is
a lot more melodious than our Indan mynahs. I realise, by
the way, that a lot of bird-lovers loathe mynahs. The zoo
told me to bash its brains out. But I don't want to do
anything like that. Regards, Jean
A. First of all, bravo on your decision in the midst of
the ever-present criticism of the mynah bird.
If you want to see if they're 'compatible' with each other
in a cage, you should set the two cages at a distance,
preferably about 1 meter from each other. Slowly bring the
cages closer to each other, day after day, watching to see
the reactions each one takes to the other closing in on it's
'territory'. Any aggressive behaviour, you should stop
bringing them together till the aggression calms down. Then
slowly start the process again. When they are just nearly
touching, you should leave the cage there for a couple days,
observing their reactions to the situation. If one of them
is acting overly aggresive, or aggressive at all for that
matter, you may not be able to combine them.
If they are
acting passive about the situation, then is the time you
should combine the birds. It is very important that you keep
a close eye on them for the first couple hours, any serious
aggresion and you need to start the process again, or else
quit it all together. I suggest getting one of those 'baby
talk' monitoring systems, and carry it around wherever you
go, this way you will know if they are having troubles with each
other. You'll want to monitor them this way for the first
week, and if they don't have any problems with each other,
then they should be ok
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