I am for sure that Spice is a male and Sugar is a female. Yep, lol, their names are Sugar and Spice. Here are a couple pics of them. I have a horrible camera, but you get the idea of how they look. We have not tried to get them out of their cage yet. We want to wait until they get a bit more used to us. Spice is the dark one and Sugar is the yellow/white one. Sugar is bigger than Spice, and in my opinion, a lot prettier, lol.

We are also in the process of cleaning their cage up and replacing the perches. (waiting for payday, lol) My sister and her hubby we're never the neatest people in the world.

Hope to get better pics soon.

this is Spice

 

and this is Sugar.  

If the male is beating up on the female, you should separate them immediately.  Don't be so concerned with waiting until they are more used to you.  It is terribly stressful for a bird to be housed with a bully.  If they are too noisy being in separate cages, then give the male to the in-laws.  I think they would be far less likely to scream for the other,if they are living where they can't hear each other at all.  They will both be better pets if they are not together.  I think that birds should have their own cages, unless they are in breeding set-ups.  Even then, the behavior of this male would not be acceptable and he would be removed from the pairing.

 

 

 

 

Well, let me begin by saying that I haven't been back because I have been taking care of some things. I took both birds to the avian vet and had them both checked out. Both recieved a clean bill of health except for the fact that Sugar, the female, has lost a lot of feathers due to the males "bullying" her. She also had "bite marks" on her skin from him. Vet said to seperate them ASAP. As for calcium, she is doing very well. My inlaws have had many birds over the years and know how to take care of them. They still have a keet, Skeeter, and he is very healthy and gets checked often. They have taken the time to get a beautiful cage and set it up with everything Spice could ever want. He is in a great place in the house, and the inlaws have been doting on him constantly and he is doing VERY awesome. He plays, eats, drinks and has already been out of the cage to "check things out". He seems to be doing great over there. Sugar is here with us and is very calm now and less agitated. She and our keet "talk" back and forth, she has finally been able to interact with us and loves it, not to mention she has found out what a scritch is and begs for them every time we go near her, lol. I think her favorite thing is......she's stress free! We plan to wait a bit, then take her to get her wings clipped. Whenever we take Dixie out, the ferrets go in the bedroom, door closed. So the same will apply with her. We never plan to mix the two birds, or have them out together.

So all in all I think we did the best thing we could. They both have forever homes, Sugar can heal and be herself.....and Spice will have all the attention he can handle. (Skeeter, the keet does as well. )

   When our family and hubbys family get any kind of new pet, it stays our pet. Unfortunatley we couldn't keep Spice, but he will never have to deal with all of this again. We have had our keet, Dixie, since he was 6 weeks old. And our ferrets we rescued when they were only a year old. Dixie is now 5 years old and the ferrets are all around 4. We always hear from friends that we treat our "babies" like members of the family. I say,"YUP! and thats they way it'll always be!"

 

 

 

Just an update and wanted to let everyone know how things went. Thank you all for your help. It means a lot to have people to get advice from when you're not sure. Luckily I have a good avian vet.

Thanks again!!