Help please :))

[jackmcgilligan]

Hey everyone!

First and foremost, I'm very new to bird-keeping so forgive me if I say something wrong.

I have been looking at getting a pet bird for the past month or so. I've done a lot of research and I'm confident that I'm able to look after a bird and keep it safe and happy. The only problem is, I'm not sure what kind I should get!

I hope I'm not asking too much, but these would be my requirements (though they are flexible, as I know I can't be overly picky)

- Relatively quiet. I don't mind chirping and the like, but I'm not a fan of screaming and constant repetitive loud noises.
- Not overly difficult to look after. As I said, I'm very new to this, so an easy to look after breed would be great.
- I can hand tame it, and have it sit on my shoulder/carry it on my hand/etc.
- This is definitely not a hard requirement, but talking would be a bonus

Also, sorry if this is the wrong section to put this under.

Thanks to everyone in advance for all your help! )

[Pajarita]

Hi, Jack, welcome to the forum and thank you for doing research before you make a decision.

Now, I am afraid that your requirements are not easy to meet so I will explain.

- Relatively quiet: Well, budgies and tiels are both relatively quiet.
The budgies do chirp and chatter constantly - and I do mean CONSTANTLY - but they are not loud at all and although some people find this VERY distracting to the point of annoying, I actually like the 'background noise' they make. Budgies are aviary birds and need to be kept in pairs.
Cockatiels are also not loud but, if you keep a single one, either male or female, it will eventually make a constant repetitive chirp calling for a mate. It can become quite monotonous and distracting plus keeping an aviary bird alone is plain cruel.

Not overly difficult to look after:
Well, parrots are all difficult to look after if you do it right and doing it wrong (which is easy) will end up killing the bird before its time. BUT, as with everything else in life, the degree of the difficulty is 100% subjective because what one person considers hard, another one considers it easy. They all require not to be free-fed protein food and provided fresh produce every day as well as hours of out-of-cage and flight. I've been doing this for a very long time and it has become so second nature that I can do it in my sleep so, to me, this is not hard at all but for first timers, it can be a bit daunting and complicated until they get the hang of it. But, in my personal opinion, the hardest thing about keeping a parrot healthy and happy is the solar schedule because, let's face it, even morning people like to sleep in every now and then and, when you have a parrot, you cannot do it. I've been doing it for over 25 years and I still find getting up before 5 am in the summer VERY hard.

Hand tame so you can have it on your shoulder or your hand:
I am afraid that carrying a bird in your hand is a complete NO NO - it should NEVER be done. It's way too stressful to them because the ONLY time their body is grabbed like that is when a predator catches them - and we all know how that ends up, right?
Walking around with it on your shoulder is easy and almost all parrots will be more than happy to do this BUT budgies are very flighty and hardly ever stay on your shoulder. Cockatiels will do it for a little while but it will have to be inside your house because, in my personal opinion, they are too fragile to be harnessed and, as you will have to have two of them, walking with both of them with harnesses will be very hard.

As to talking, both budgies and tiels can learn to talk but this only happens for male budgies that are alone (very cruel) and tiels are more known for whistles than actual words although they can learn a couple.

[jackmcgilligan]

Thanks for your quick reply!

It seems as if a cockatiel may be the best bird for me. I'll continue to do research into it and make sure I can give my birds a happy life!

One more question. Are cockatiels expensive to look after? From your advice, I'd get a pair so they can keep eachother company whenever I can't attend to them. So having two cockatiels and paying for a large cage, food, vet bills, toys, etc., would they be expensive? More expensive than, say, a dog or something?

Thanks!

[Pajarita]

Well, it all depends on what you feed and the size of the dog, right? I have multiple dogs, cats and birds and I do not find the birds to be more expensive than the dogs or cats but, again, it all depends. I feed good quality food to all my animals, my dogs eat quality kibble (grain-free, real meat as first ingredient, all natural) mixed with equal parts of canned food but three of them are highly allergic and get special food (salmon-based kibble and cans with duck breast jerky for treats) and that's a bit expensive because one of them is an 86 lb golden retriever. My cats also eat good quality food (grain-free, real meat as first ingredient, high protein, all natural) in both kibble (of which they eat very little) and canned food. One of them requires prescription kibble and only eats canned chicken breast with a spoonful of tuna mixed in because he will not eat regular canned cat food and he needs to consume mostly wet food so he is quite expensive. My birds eat gloop which I make myself with raw produce for breakfast and a seed mix or a seed mix with nuts for dinner depending on the species. The gloop is a bit pricey but this is because I make a very large batch of grains which I split into two, I freeze half for later and the other half I prepare with frozen veggies which is also split into baggies that hold a daily portion each. I have 16 parrots right now and 6 of them are medium/large species. For dinner, they eat a cockatiel seed mix doctored with nuts - more or less depending on the species so the cockatoo and the African gray get more nuts than seed but the amazons get more seeds than nuts and the caiques get a budgie seed with a couple of nuts, only. But for a couple of tiels, you don't need much - two heaping tablespoons of gloop, a large leaf of a leafy green (they do like their greens) and a smallish piece of a fruit (they are not big on fruit usually) and one of veggie (they do love corn on the cob) will do for breakfast and, for dinner, two level tablespoons of a budgie seed for the cold months and cockatiel seed for the warm ones is enough. For your reference, I have been using ABBA 1600 (budgie/parakeet) and ABBA 1600 C (cockatiel) for over 25 years and have found it to be good quality and not expensive at all.

What is more expensive is medical care. It's much more expensive to take a bird to an avian vet for a complete physical or for any type of surgery than it is a dog or a cat but I only take my birds when I first get them (all my birds are rehomes) so as to know what I am dealing with and, after that, only if they get sick or, if they are old or started out with some sort of an issue, once or twice more until the issue is resolved and then only once every two years or so if they are old. I haven't taken any in the last few months because of the covid19 situation as my avian vet will not allow people to come into the clinic, you need to wait outside in the car until you are called and then pass the carrier with the animal to the assistant and I do not like my birds to be handled without me being present (I don't like my animals to get stressed out but most especially my birds).