June-

June is starting to stand up for himself to Ipyana (Never thought that would happen!). He hesitates about standing his ground but he does.... If Ipyana doesn't intimidate him by trying to bite him. When it comes to his territory he gets grouchy when Ipyana is in it.... and that includes me. lol  They interlocked beaks when trying to fight over me today. It kind of freaks me out. I'm afraid one will really hurt the other, but I've heard it isn't common in cockatiels. June always aggressively squawks at Ipyana from afar but if Ipyana challenges it, June runs..... except today he didn't. I'm sure June is just testing the waters, but Ipyana is letting him get away with it sometimes. June has made a BIG improvement in accepting Ipyana. At first he wouldn't even be in the same room with him, and now, their cages are side by side and June even gets on Ipyana's cage. Hopefully they will be able to get along decently in the future. But I know they wont be the best of friends, especially when Ipyana reaches sexual maturity and thinks I'm his mate (like June does). We will see how it goes. I just moved so I know they will be a bit grouchy from the stress of that.

Ipyana-

I hate to have to report that Ipyana is still either breaking blood feathers or chewing on them too hard and breaking them. I suspect he is chewing on them until they break and then the damaged feather either falls out or he plucks it out. I am suspecting this because when I find the broken blood feather on the bottom of the cage, its all chewed up till the shaft is mangled.  It also looks as though he is plucking feathers before they are fully grown. I have never witnessed him plucking out his feathers or chewing on them till they break but the evidence is there. I am around them alot so I cant understand why I have missed these tragedies in action. I am glad to say that it doesn't happen as often as it was happening, but it doesn't make it anymore disheartening when it does happen. Poor thing, I had to take out most of his toys out of his cage because he loves to try and sit on them and he ends up falling off and crashing down to the bottom (He doesn't learn from this, but part of it is that genetically he has really bad balance). So he plays with them outside the cage. Lately he has been extremely jumpy. He will be sitting on me and I'll move my hand to do something and he jumps. I can see how this could be normal for a jumpy shy bird, but he has been doing it alot more lately at even the slightest movement. When I read a magazine (Bird Talk), I have to turn the pages very very slowly or he tries to take off from inside his cage. As you can imagine, it can be very concerning to care for him. But, I wouldn't give him up for the world