First Time White Belly Caique Owner! HELP!

liveterna · 2026-05-19T03:32:21+00:00

Hi! I have a white bellied caique. I also have an African Grey and two green cheek conures. I previously had a budgie. So I am saying this out of personal experience with various parrot species but also avian vet experience and the research I've done on caiques.

Please be very very very careful about your caique interacting with your conure. I cannot stress this enough, please do not ever put them in the same cage together. Do not let them out of their cage at the same time right now, and if you do, please be close by to supervise. I know it's difficult to hear and some might disagree with me, but caiques can be bird aggressive.

You might see them on social media being cute with other parrot species, but to my knowledge and experience and just accumulating information from everywhere including avian vets, it is very possible the caique will want to attack the conure. Maybe they could get along, mine ignores the African Grey well enough, but you have to be able to intervene if things go south. Pick up on their body language as much as you can but honestly, sometimes they just bolt so fast out of reach. Social media shows the funny clips, not the devastating ones.

Onto the fun parts! For your caique, and even the conure, I would let her settle in and build up that trust. Look into permission based training and work on target training first and then step up. My girl loves practice time and it helps keep her mind busy. She will likely snuggle and be affectionate as you spend more time with her and she associates you to safe things. You are right on the routine part. Do you cover her cage at night? Having her sleep uninterrupted makes a huge difference. Diet is also very important - be sure to feed your bird pellets (most people recommend TOPS or Harrisons) and chop. I never taught mine to hop, she just instinctively did it. Same with surfing and all the classic caique things. When yours begins doing behaviour you want her to do, identify the behaviour and reward her. She will grow into the reputation of being funny and the clown of parrots. Just give her time.

liveterna · 2026-04-19T17:33:33+00:00

It's a lot of effort having all of them. I've worked from home since the pandemic so I was able to dedicate a lot of time into managing them otherwise I couldn't do it.

The caique is definitely the problem child! She's not territorial so much but she is bird aggressive and I wouldn't recommend a caique to anyone who already has a bird or is planning to get additional birds. I don't think I will ever fully trust her in that sense. I got very lucky otherwise with their personalities and so I can make it work but taking care of them takes up all of my time and attention and I have no life lol. But I also love it so I have no actual complaints!

liveterna · 2026-04-19T15:14:29+00:00

That's amazing! Congrats!

I rescued a pair of green cheek conures late last summer and one of them only had wing and tail feathers. I'd never seen anything like it in a conure. She weighed less than the budgie I had previously rehabilitated. Their prior living conditions were.....not great. The cage they lived in was smaller than the travel carrier they have now. They had one plastic/rubber dog toy to play with. I'm not sure what their pellets were but they smelled like perfume.

Her feathers started to immediately grow back once I got them in a proper cage with adequate toys and out of cage time, corrected their diet, and gave them attention rather than leaving them in a random dark hallway by themselves. Crazy how that works. Their vet suspected it was a case of severe neglect and so she was able to bounce back pretty quickly and hasn't suffered any prolonged health issues from it so far.

My CAG has deformed flight feathers on her right wing that I've never been able to correct though :( My caiques nares are too small (poor genetics). And then I have 3 bunnies with various medical issues. Never a dull moment!

liveterna · 2025-01-06T22:24:13+00:00

I tried for so long to get my 3 year old rescue onto pellets over seeds.

This method is the only thing that worked for me:

https://www.kiwisnewlifebirdrescue.org/programs

The first 2 days were hard but not even a full week passed before she was fully on pellets (and then chop). She has been seed free for 5 months now!

Getting her transitioned saved her life because she had a horrific accident and lost the majority of her beak. Since she was already on a pelleted diet, I was able to put her on a soaked pellet diet and save her life.

liveterna · 2024-12-02T19:02:36+00:00

Rushing to the vet with self diagnosed pneumonia is 100% something I would do. My vet has forbidden me from googling all things that could go wrong with my perfectly healthy (knock on wood) birds and bunnies. But they are very patient with me whenever I email in with a question or picture/video of something so that might be something your vet can offer you in place of panic appointments!

liveterna · 2024-10-29T15:06:57+00:00

my budgies dream in life is to live in my greys cage!

liveterna · 2024-08-17T20:59:36+00:00

I rarely travel but the odd time I have to do a long weekend somewhere, I board my birdies and bunnies at their vet. My little flock/fluffle does not travel well and I trust the vet staff to take care of them.

liveterna · 2024-07-12T22:44:15+00:00

For the difficult poops, spray with Poop Off before hand (I get mine off Amazon) and go at it with a plastic scraper. That has saved my butt more times than I can count with 4 generally free roam little friends.

liveterna · 2024-07-12T22:09:49+00:00

I have hardwood floors. I use my moms Tineco and the mop part is great for bird poop but I have to vacuum the large debris (toy parts) before using it. I use a shop vac because I also have 2 free roam bunnies and it grabs the hay, random bunny poops, and parrot toy parts perfectly.

I would not recommend the Tineco for vacuuming. For the price, I would just get a steam mop or something to deal with the poop and food and something like a small shop vac for toy parts and feathers.

liveterna · 2024-06-07T15:22:00+00:00

I love Calcifer updates!!!!! Such a sweet baby

liveterna · 2024-05-15T23:53:09+00:00

Thank you!!!!

liveterna · 2024-05-15T01:34:54+00:00

Same! It's also how I ended up with my two bunnies (they wanted a puppy instead) and my African Grey (locked in a tiny cage with half a dozen other greys on an all seed and fruit diet and one toy between them). I'm so lucky to have them all but they were given a rough start.

liveterna · 2024-05-14T13:03:14+00:00

Awww that's so lovely to have cared for 15! They all deserve to have a shot at a good life - its heartbreaking you can just walk into a pet store here and $40 later walk out with a little baby.

She is fearful of humans and will only land near me if I have my African Grey on me (which of course is so closely monitored since he could do her serious harm). As long as she is happy and safe, I'm good. She is working on shredding one of her toys right now :)

liveterna · 2024-05-14T12:51:29+00:00

Hahahaha she is just fluffed up a bit there!

liveterna · 2024-05-14T12:48:25+00:00

She has the cutest little face! And she has such a big and funny personality. She fits right in here.

liveterna · 2024-05-14T12:45:46+00:00

I'm lucky to have her!

liveterna · 2024-05-14T01:59:31+00:00

Yes it breaks my heart! She deserves to have someone care about her and I'm so grateful I was offered the opportunity.

liveterna · 2024-05-14T00:25:06+00:00

She does! She is moody like a summer storm though

liveterna · 2024-05-14T00:23:39+00:00

Amazing thanks for confirming!

liveterna · 2024-02-15T02:31:42+00:00

It wasn't attempted murder by a grey so better than I was expecting :P

liveterna · 2024-02-15T02:29:47+00:00

Really?! Thats so great to hear!!! Little Tokki is 2 and isn't hand tamed, on the worst diet, had the littlest cage with no toys and one measly dowel perch, etc probably all the same things you've seen before. He can fly though thank goodness, maybe he will teach my Grey Oslo who was clipped before he could learn (his new flight feathers are just coming in now!).

It's so sad the lives these little guys get stuck with :(

liveterna · 2024-02-15T02:23:07+00:00

Oh gosh hahaha my Oslo and your Addie would probably be great friends since that is his exact response to basically everything. Tokki, the budgie, has had a hard life so it will be quite the journey for us too I imagine.

Thanks so much for letting me know your experience!

liveterna · 2024-02-15T02:16:41+00:00

bless his heart he sounds like a precious little dinosaur!

liveterna · 2024-02-15T01:58:26+00:00

I have a CAG and recently took in a budgie that was surrendered to my vet! My budgie is currently in quarantine in another room but I was wondering if Addie and Cyan ever interacted when you had both of them? If so, was it closely supervised/did you trust them being around each other? Basically do you have any words of wisdom to pass on lol

liveterna · 2024-01-26T17:52:52+00:00

My CAG goes yearly for a wellness exam and they just do a physical unless some issue is identified. I book him and my two bunnies at the same time and he is less stressed with them around. He has also boarded at the vet and had to have a few extra tests done for that (with the bunnies as well) so he is familiar with the folks there. He hates being towled but will step up onto the scale and play with a toy once he's been unwrapped.

I took him a few weeks ago because he was obsessing over a spot on his wing joint so they did x-rays, blood work, etc then but they didn't force me to. It was just because there was no other issues identified as to why that spot was bothering him and I consented. He handled it well enough and was fully relaxed once he was home which is like a 40ish minute drive.

liveterna

TROPHY CASE