Does anyone have experience of having both English and American Budgies? Arty, I know you have both and hope you will weigh in with your thoughts on how they get along and if they interact with one another...

We are in the process of *considering* adding an English budgie to our flock. I know it's basically a crapshoot as to whether or not ANY species will get along with our flock, but I wanted opinions on how well an English and American budgie might get along.

The preference would be to one day have said English budgie and Jerry live together, should they choose to. Is it even plausible to consider two different subspecies being housed together?

I would NEVER put them in the same cage straight away, I would definitely house them separately at first, until I could gauge (over a long period of time) how they get along. And if I have to tame an English budgie from scratch, it could be a long time before they came face to face without a cage barrier, and that's just fine.

I would also make sure to get a male. I have no idea if the two subspecies could mate, but I don't want to find out! And I don't want to deal with male or female hormones.

I'm still very much up in the air about this, just tossing the idea around over and over. I'd love to have a playmate for Jerry, especially during the day when we're at work, but at the same time I do not want to jeopardize our relationship with him (selfish, I know..) or his health by bringing in a new bird.

I placed my albino english budgie next to american budgies for 2 weeks to allow them time to study one another.
Then I opened both cages to allow a get together on there own time, I placed the cages so they could go into each others cage and take things slowly, things didn't work out so well for me or them, Cid attacked the others.
I had to keep them seperated.
Things I concidered.
Cid is 17 years old now, He is larger than the others, he is dominate.
My Engish Budgie was the aggressive one, the others had no problems with him at all.
I sat and watched Cid's reactions while the cages were close to each other, he appeared as if he wanted to be with my Americans, but when allowed to do so it turned out badly.
I honestly wish I could say "YES" they will get along, each bird is different, it could very well be that Cid is an old bird, he has been alone all his life.
I have 16 American Budgies here and one English Budgie, by all means Cid acts like he wants the companionship, but when together its a whole different story.
It could possibly be that a younger English will get along with an American, I wouldn't let this issue keep me from getting the English, if anything you will have to buy another cage and place them next to each other for afew weeks then take them both out and see how they act twords each other and be prepared to seperate them, if they do take to one another then you will always have an extra cage.
Alway's follow Quarentine procedures no matter where the bird comes from.
I hope this helped you.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I want to get as many opinions and hear as many experiences as I can. I realize that it's impossible to say if any one or two birds will get along, but I want to be as prepared as I can (I'm an over-thinker if ya can't tell ).

I'll know more after this weekend when I spend some more time with the adorable big guy (assuming he's still there..).