My experience
Parakeets or Australian parakeets to be more exact are vicious little guys, these are also what most people refer to as budgies. They will kill other birds especially if they feel their nest is in danger. We used to have parakeets until one killed cockatiel chicks even while the cockatiel parents were trying to fight her off. Now we have English budgies. English budgies are a different bird than parakeets in temperament and size.
English budgies and parakeets look alike. The difference is that the English are bred for show, they are much larger and tend not to be as vicious, they also tend to be more heavily feathered or longer feathered. They are more easily tamed than parakeets too. Due to being handled by show judges, English have been bred to be more docile and calm. Each bird is a individual, of course, but as a stereotype if you want a pet that looks like a parakeet, do research, find a breeder and get a English. Broody English hens can be as vicious as parakeets.
In our large aviary we had (just took some to the pet store so it's been thinned out), a pair of moustache parakeets, 24 zebra finches, 70 adult English and various chicks. We also have button quail as ground cleaners.
Cockatiels ARE good for mixed aviaries, unless someone else picks on them. They will not pick on other birds. Only the male cockatiels will argue but I have never had any out of my flock of 30 draw blood on each other. They argue if another male gets too close to their nest boxes. Even if you do not breed cockatiels, the old ones enjoy sitting in a box and on cool nights nearly all of our birds will go into their boxes for the night. A few will take "sentry" duty while everyone else is snug and warm.
Zebras can be really nasty to other small birds. A male zebra nearly killed a cut throat male finch because he dared to look at their nest. I now house Zebras by themselves, only zebras with them. Zebras will argue and fight amongst themselves over nest material or good nest sites. I have not had any kill each other yet, but I can imagine it CAN happen. Zebras will go into a nest at night. They are not perch sleepers but enjoy being snug and safe. Society finches also go into their nests to roost at night.
Personally I love Zebras and I never thought I would say that! They are very smart little birds and easily tamed. In my English budgie aviary when zebras tried using nest baskets the budgies destroyed the nests as quick as they could build them. Finally the zebras, and this did not take long, figured out if they build between OCCUPIED budgie nest boxes, the budgie hens inadvertently guard the zebra nests from other budgies out to do damage. It's only young budgies who do the damage, they are just curious and playful and mean no harm. If you have males and females, the population WILL explode with zebras, weather you want it to or not.

This is my box of Ugly
We put the zebra chicks into the budgie aviary to separate them from our breeder adults after they weaned. They immediately proceeded to build nests and populate the budgie aviary with chicks. When we pulled the zebras from the budgies to take to the pet shop we deal with, we had to pull the chicks too and we are currently hand feeding them. All 11... And let me tell you, NOTHING poops more than a box of finch chicks. I love hand feeding finch chicks!! It will be hard selling these chicks. by the time they are weaned they will be mobbing our hands and flying all over us.
Parakeets or Australian parakeets to be more exact are vicious little guys, these are also what most people refer to as budgies. They will kill other birds especially if they feel their nest is in danger. We used to have parakeets until one killed cockatiel chicks even while the cockatiel parents were trying to fight her off. Now we have English budgies. English budgies are a different bird than parakeets in temperament and size.
English budgies and parakeets look alike. The difference is that the English are bred for show, they are much larger and tend not to be as vicious, they also tend to be more heavily feathered or longer feathered. They are more easily tamed than parakeets too. Due to being handled by show judges, English have been bred to be more docile and calm. Each bird is a individual, of course, but as a stereotype if you want a pet that looks like a parakeet, do research, find a breeder and get a English. Broody English hens can be as vicious as parakeets.
In our large aviary we had (just took some to the pet store so it's been thinned out), a pair of moustache parakeets, 24 zebra finches, 70 adult English and various chicks. We also have button quail as ground cleaners.
Cockatiels ARE good for mixed aviaries, unless someone else picks on them. They will not pick on other birds. Only the male cockatiels will argue but I have never had any out of my flock of 30 draw blood on each other. They argue if another male gets too close to their nest boxes. Even if you do not breed cockatiels, the old ones enjoy sitting in a box and on cool nights nearly all of our birds will go into their boxes for the night. A few will take "sentry" duty while everyone else is snug and warm.
Zebras can be really nasty to other small birds. A male zebra nearly killed a cut throat male finch because he dared to look at their nest. I now house Zebras by themselves, only zebras with them. Zebras will argue and fight amongst themselves over nest material or good nest sites. I have not had any kill each other yet, but I can imagine it CAN happen. Zebras will go into a nest at night. They are not perch sleepers but enjoy being snug and safe. Society finches also go into their nests to roost at night.
Personally I love Zebras and I never thought I would say that! They are very smart little birds and easily tamed. In my English budgie aviary when zebras tried using nest baskets the budgies destroyed the nests as quick as they could build them. Finally the zebras, and this did not take long, figured out if they build between OCCUPIED budgie nest boxes, the budgie hens inadvertently guard the zebra nests from other budgies out to do damage. It's only young budgies who do the damage, they are just curious and playful and mean no harm. If you have males and females, the population WILL explode with zebras, weather you want it to or not.
This is my box of Ugly

We put the zebra chicks into the budgie aviary to separate them from our breeder adults after they weaned. They immediately proceeded to build nests and populate the budgie aviary with chicks. When we pulled the zebras from the budgies to take to the pet shop we deal with, we had to pull the chicks too and we are currently hand feeding them. All 11... And let me tell you, NOTHING poops more than a box of finch chicks. I love hand feeding finch chicks!! It will be hard selling these chicks. by the time they are weaned they will be mobbing our hands and flying all over us.
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