Caiques, tell me all about em :D

[jayebird]

So I know it's soon, but, we're thinking about adding another feathered family member to our flock within the next year or so....and we're thinking white-bellied caique. Our GCC-maroon bellied hybrid, Mango (a year and 4 months old), is such a hands-on cuddlebug and pretty calm/quiet.......that from all I've read (and watched online) about caiques then they'd make a nice balance to that personality type. We're also interested in the different sort of intelligence that a caique has. We love training animals and that would be fun! But still, a bird that's willing to "hang out" with you while doing the dishes, surfing the web, watching a movie, etc, is the best. Our expected future family will be 1-2 birds, a golden retriever dog (once we have a big enough yard, so not for at least 5-10 years), and of course us humans.


Can people with hands-on experience tell us about these "clowns of the parrot world", how they've fit into your family, and how they might fit into our family?


(As a sidenote, I posted this as a separate topic here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4186 about multi-bird households and asking how that works out for you)

[Cozzy]

personally I don't have a caique as pet, however, many of my friends have caiques, both white bellied and black capped caique. One of them has both black capped and white bellied. I would ay white bellied caique seems to be more active than the black capped caique. Both are really lovely bird.

[lzver]

I don't have much experience with Caiques, but even I'd love to get one some day.

I get the impression they are quite active birds and I know people that have some and they have a lot of personality. Unfortunately, I can't provide much more input.

[jayebird]

The activity and play level is what really attracts us Mango is mostly calm and always up for cuddles, but not so much playful (even with his own toys). So a complementary bird personality (for us) would be a clowny and active bird to watch for laughs and play with for fun.

Both would end up being mostly non-flighted, so bird-bird aggression wouldn't be too much of a problem as we'll try to separate out of cage time and they'll have widely spaced separate cages and separate playstands, etc. Plus, I've read of plenty of stories about caiques who have learned to get along with other species, especially if raised around other birds as babies. Mango thinks he's a much bigger bird than he actually is when around other birds. We're okay with the idea that they may never be friends, but you never know - we'd just never force that or give them an opportunity for aggression or be unsupervised.

[Cozzy]

The activity and play level is what really attracts us Mango is mostly calm and always up for cuddles, but not so much playful (even with his own toys). So a complementary bird personality (for us) would be a clowny and active bird to watch for laughs and play with for fun.

Both would end up being mostly non-flighted, so bird-bird aggression wouldn't be too much of a problem as we'll try to separate out of cage time and they'll have widely spaced separate cages and separate playstands, etc. Plus, I've read of plenty of stories about caiques who have learned to get along with other species, especially if raised around other birds as babies. Mango thinks he's a much bigger bird than he actually is when around other birds. We're okay with the idea that they may never be friends, but you never know - we'd just never force that or give them an opportunity for aggression or be unsupervised.

well cariques can get alone with other bird quite well, one of my friend has a capped get along alright with the cockatoo, another friend has a black capped get along with a sun conure.
A really funny fact is cariques love to hop but don't like to fly.

[guybo]

On a TV show I saw a lady and her black capped Caique do the most amazing series of tricks I've ever seen a bird do. It started out peddling a bike, climbing up this tower, using a zipline to get down and there was a bunch of other stuff. It was really cool.

OK, so that's kind of OT and kinda not, but it's all I got LOL

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Most Green-cheeks are pretty active -- ours certainly is! Cuddly, too, but definitely not adverse to kicking up a ruckus. Are you sure Mango has come out of his shell? You could wind up with a 3-ring circus!

[MandyG]

So a complementary bird personality (for us) would be a clowny and active bird to watch for laughs and play with for fun.

I don't have any experience with Caiques, but I'd say Amazons are absolutely hilarious to watch! I'm a little biased though. Mojo isn't a huge fan of cuddles but he does love to just hang out on my shoulder. He really prefers to be playing on his own though. He's hilarious and goes all out when he plays, I could watch him for hours. He's not really into 'hands on' playing but he loves learning tricks and showing off.

Just my 2 cents worth

[Chris&Akilah]

When I was at the Canadian Parrot Conference I kept hearing this high-pitched, rather piercing whistle...being a parrot noob, I thought it was some sort of annoying electronic noise, maybe their smoke detector on the fritz...no, it was a caique. I had considered them along with the Senegal, but SOOOO glad I didn't chose one because that is apparantly their "normal" call?

[Natacha]

Caiques...they never stop

Seriously, I've met a few and have played with them and I was more than happy to hand them back when I had to leave. I couldn't deal with their level of energy.

One thing though, since you already have a bird. A lot of people who own them say Caiques can be aggressive to other birds. Mind you, I've heard they do better with a bird who's already in a household than with a bird joining the flock.