So I have rats and they're extremely social because of how they live in colonies in the wild. How come birds that live in groups don't need another bird for mental health, like many other social animals do?
http://flock-talk.tumblr.com/tagged/cohabiting
that tag goes in to a whole lot more detail than I could in one message
long story short, most parrot species are extremely aggressive, many don’t have as large of a flock as we think they do (parrotlets, eclectuses, lovebirds for example only live in pairs or super tiny groups of 4-6, only really gathering to drink or eat together). In order for multiple birds to be able to exist together they need a TON of space to avoid that threat of breaching territory, taking resources, etc. Birds don’t all get along in the wild (they constantly bicker and tell one another to back off) so when you put that sort of bickering in to a small space the bird can not possibly actually ‘back off’ which leads to huge fights that often end in either severe injury or death.
When a bird can leave the situation to deescalate a fight it’s typically fine, but as soon as you compile the resources to one area and confine the space they have to share, if there’s the slightest bit of disagreement and they feel the ‘threat bird’ isn’t far enough away it explodes in to a really huge fight.
of course this isn’t the same for all species, budgies and cockatiels can fly in flocks of hundreds and their behaviours will be different in terms of safe parameters but in general that’s the basics of the issue.
