are two-person parrots a thing?

[mrs.pants]

ive always read/heard/seen people say that parrots have their "one person" but is it possible that a parrot can bond with more than one and favor neither?

this boi always seems to send mixed signals lol. sometimes he'll just want to be with daddy, sometimes he'll just want to be with mommy. he perches on daddys shoulder and sings, he perches on mommies uhm...chest and purrs. he preens both of us, and on both of us, and bounces between us when we play.

there's legit nothing that he does that seems to suggest he prefers one to the other. I mean we dont care either way which of us he chooses, and he's still just a baby at 7 months old, but i'm just curious if a two-person bird is possible?

 

[Flboy]

Our first, Tango(GCC) loved everybody! Even if she didn’t know you, she was down your shirt! My wife was obviously #1, but even with her in the room, Tango was a sweetheart to everyone!

 

[noodles123]

My bird definitely loves me---even so, she gets really excited when she sees my dad because she is OBSESSED with him--they don't even live in the same state, nor have they ever! She is also mildly obsessed with me, but if he is in the room, she wants to be where he is immediately. In her ideal world (and my hell) it would be the 3 of us living within 3 feet of each other at all times lol!

So...yes, she favors him (randomly, as she doesn't even know him THAT well) but, I can take her off of him without getting bitten and pet her while she sits on him--this cannot be said for others.

She will still let others hold her, but if I hear my dad, I swoop her away from whoever she is with and put her on a perch (or on me) because she acts like the rest of the world is tormenting her by preventing their glorious reunion...I get a pass (which helps). If he isn't around, she is very nice to most people (once they pass her weird, not-so-nice, initiation bite-challenge...and she doesn't do that initially either, it is like when she wants to take the relationship to the next level, she has to test to see if you can handle it (after being quite sweet and cordial initially lol).

 

[Jen5200]

I have one sun conure - Bindi - that goes back and forth between my husband and I and loves on both of us without any clear preference. Our other 3 conures have a clear preference for me - and our cockatiel is in love with my husband. So in my experience, yes some birds seem to be able to love people in their flock equally and others not as much .

 

[charmedbyekkie]

Male ekkies are, admittedly, known to be more chill about people. Cairo goes to me for play time (trick training), food, and safety (my head/hair somehow magically protects him from everything). But my partner, he goes to for chilling out - they'll sit together and repeat sounds at each other, and my partner is second-tier magical protector head.

Cairo will step up and respond to commands more consistently with me, but I honestly think that's largely because of how I handle him. I've worked with horses and dogs before (whereas my partner just had a cat), so I'm hyperaware of Cairo's body language (constantly trying to figure out why he's doing what he's doing), I'm always using the same verbal/body cues, and I'm more likely to give treats with the clicker of 'good boy'.

My partner does mean well, but sometimes he forgets that birds don't think like humans or cats - they don't have the same understanding of the world nor the same reasoning process. So the two of them sometimes have misunderstandings, and Cairo can be a bit more forceful in stating his boundaries (largely because my partner misses the cues that he's overstepped Cairo's comfort zone). But in the end, Cairo will always go back to chill out with my partner.

So I do think it's a mix of a wild card (Cairo clearly preferred my partner when he first came to us) plus how the humans initiate and interact with the bird (I've had to win Cairo over).

Forgot to add that if only one of us is around, he'll fly to someone he thinks looks like the missing person (when I'm not around, he'll fly to other women of the same age range and similar look; when my partner's not around, he'll fly to other men also of the same age range and similar look).

 

[Scott]

It is possible, most of my Goffins have learned to befriend two people. But they are a social species unlike many others.

 

[Allee]

our CAG and YNA spent their 30 day quarantine at my husband’s apartment near his job then they moved home with the rest of the flock so both of them are bonded to both of us, they seem to like us both equally. All our birds interact with family members and friends. I’m popular only because I’m the major caregiver.

 

[ChristaNL]

It just the difference between a pairbond (wich is exclusive and they will defend agains all others) and a (healthy when in captivity!) flock-bond (like being family without the hormonal-induced stuff).


Ekkies are notorious not pairbonding (if they are given the chance they will somewhat indiscriminately mate with the opposite sexe, as long as the female gets the food she does not care, and the males share anyway) so they would be easier to convince to just 'keep it chill for all' than f.e. the macaws who even prefer to fly close together, not just perch (although they *do* exist in large flocks...or it is "because"??).
This is not in anyway critique on one and praising the other, it just how birds react to/ interact with their environment, and how every species has found their own way of dealing with "life" the best they can!
So fiercely pairbonding birds would take a more socializing (and/or discouraged pairbonding) to make them "just another familymember", and the more relaxed birds will "go with the family-flow" a lot easier.


The whole nature-nurture package again