Tell me your first experience of your first bird

[kaylayuh]

My first experience with a bird was with my parents' Moluccan cockatoo. They kept him in a padlocked cage all of the time and never let anyone take him out. They also kept his cage covered most of the day to keep him quiet. One day when I was about 7, I decided I wanted to play with him, so I uncovered his cage and shared some pizza crust with him. Because they neglected him for so long, he was not amused at my attempts to be his friend and he tried to bite me.

My first experience with my own birds was with Pigpen, my lutino parakeet. I brought her home, set up her cage, and tried to remove her from the little box that the Petco put her in. I had read somewhere that you should let the bird acclimate to their surroundings for the first couple of hours, so I put her in her cage and let her explore. The first time I got her to step up was about a week later -- after I was quite sure I wouldn't break her -- and she still mostly refuses to do anything but that. But now she will occasionally, and only when she feels like it, fly to my shoulder and sit down.

[CheekyandMalolo]

My first bird experience was my first bird, a black capped lory that we bought for $K10, which is worth about $AUS3 now... Love it. Most amazing birds, we had 3, 1 for each of us kids. I was terrifIed of mine, thinking it was swooping me and attacking me, it was just trying to land on me wish we could've brought them home.

[patdbunny]

I don't remember exactly how old I was, it was definitely under 10. Someone got me two mature male untame cockatiels. They bit the crap out of me. I lost interest and would only clean their cage, feed and water them, when my parents got furious with me. They lived a dirty, nasty miserable life with me. I was overjoyed when my parents got rid of them and eased my burden of caring for them.

Second experience - I was a teen and got an untame lovebird from a petshop. They told me play with it and it will tame right down. No it didn't. It bit the crap out of me. I felt bad for it so I went back to the petstore and told them I wanted to get the lovebird a companion. They sold me a cockatiel and said they could live together. No the couldn't. The lovebird ate the feet off the cockatiel. I felt so bad. Rehomed both birds.

Decided I hated birds. They suck as pets. . .
Until I was in a different pet shop getting rabbit food and a jenday on a playstand by the door jumped on me when I walked in. I put her back. She jumped on me again when I was checking out. I bought her on impulse and have never looked back.

[ninadivine]

Oh, I only got my First bird that was all mine a few days ago so I had to reply My first experience with him was this it took me FOUR tries at the bird store picking him up before he finally let me hold him, he kept flying away and it was kinda scary, but once he let me hold him oh my god! He started talking away to me and of climbed up in my shoulder (Against the advice of the bird store employee who handed him to me) and I just fell in love he was whispering in my ear and playing with the back of my hair and it was just soo cute, I've only had him home a few days now but he's made excellent progress in bonding with me allready, he loves to cuddle and he really loves his baths.