Best Apartment birds?

[Andromeda]

We're going to look at some GCC this weekend......but everyone here seems to think GCC won't work in an apartment setting. What species of birds do work in an apartment? Can you describe their traits as well?

We're looking for something that is affectionate, but not "needy" to the point of self mutilation and fairly small- Jenday or Sun Conure size or smaller. DH doesn't ant a beak that is too large.

Like Marie, my GCC is not very loud. He's 6. He has one call he does that is very loud, but he only does it when he's unhappy or scared. When I adopted him he was 2 and whenever he would make his really loud conure call I would tell him, "It's okay. It's okay." My husband would gently tell him, "Shhh. Shhh." Now he substitutes "It's okay" and "Shhh" for his scream about half of the time, which is nice.

I lived in an apartment with him for a year and no one ever complained about noise. That being said, I saw someone else on this forum say they had a friend whose apartment evicted them because of the noise their GCC was making, so it varies by bird.

GCCs are generally very affectionate but they are also very needy. He wants constant interaction and if it was up to him he'd hang out on my shoulder or my husband's shoulder, cuddling our neck or ear, all day long.

Mine also hates being in his cage and developed a feather picking habit in his first home because his owners would leave him in his cage for days at a time without letting him out at all. Now that he is with me he's out of his cage every day for about 10 hours and his feather picking has greatly improved but he still does it out of habit.

[brfussne]

I would also suggest looking into a Lovebird. They're obviously a bit smaller than a Sun Conure though. The masked ones are so beautiful.

[paper_lantern]

I have three green cheeks in my apartment. Nobody has complained and I don't think anyone can even hear them. Furbie doesn't make any noise, except for a few screams when I leave the house and when I come back. The other two (rescue parrots), I call them Salt and Pepper, do scream throughout the day, but even then it isn't loud enough to disturb the neighbors.

[liz]

My neighbors tell me it sounds like two kids yelling at each other.

Before I knew Rambo I thought my neighbor went to work and left a kid in the house. Can you imagine my surprise when I peeked in her window and came nose to beak with Rambo who said "hellooo" when he saw me.

[brfussne]

Before I knew Rambo I thought my neighbor went to work and left a kid in the house. Can you imagine my surprise when I peeked in her window and came nose to beak with Rambo who said "hellooo" when he saw me.

I'm trying to imagine this!

[liz]

Not long after that my neice was staying with me. She told me a child was trapped in the house next door. I had to lift her up to look in the window.

[Blythewing]

The Blue headed Pionus I kept(Ned) was pretty needy, and pretty loud, and really didn't like us.We really liked him but that just made him aloof.That said he never bit except this one time he flew behind a microwave and got his toe caught on the grating.Even then it was very warning oriented and not aggresive.I think its rare that they are like this but that was my experience.We still get to hear from him and about him.We really liked him, he just way didn't dig us. Not much has changed but he is with an owner that loves and appreciates the louder species.And he really likes their chiuaua? Strangley she(Ned's owner) has a very quiet sun conure.
We now have Red Bellies.Pretty quiet...well they were until I reinforced Bellephant's high pitched squeel by petting her on the head to make her stop.Bad keeper...bad.Anyhow at their loudestattempt they are still quiter than Ole Ned.They talk like robots and mine love to stare at artwork.Creeps me out.Mine aren't particularly destructive.I didn't follow good guidence found on this forum and so Belle sort of wants to be my girlfriend and is needy. But I am already married and I think with some good keeper behaviour this could be solved.(the needyness)They are also very smart...and I at some point did something to make our male red belly angry with me(swithced him from Nutri berries to pellets),and he has held that grudge big time.Its not going away anytime soon.
I'm crazy about my Red Bellies, but if I had it to do again for their sake I would have gone with a handfed brotogeris parakeet.I think the most common is the Yellow Chevroned.
Why? Size.We also have a lovebird and she has a great time flying around the house because she can land on many more things than the RBs.She can make a perch of anything and the RB's are seriously limited to what I provide.We are working to change this, but for us it is a lot of work and trial and error.Birds gotta fly and perch..the smaller the bird the"bigger" its experience of flight and chances of confidence in landing.You are on a great forum.I hope this helped or was at least worth a long read.

[hooligan]

My GCC sounds almost exactly like Andromeda's She's much younger though, she's about 8 months old. She's not very loud at all, and for the most part the noises she makes are no louder than a normal speaking voice for most people. She screams on very rare occasions, maybe once every couple of weeks, but none of my neighbors have ever complained. I live in an apartment and I'm not sure if they even know I have a bird.

There were a couple days early on when she tried to use screaming to get my attention, but I ignored it when it happened and I think she decided it wasn't effective. What did happen though was while training her to spread her wings on command using Michael's method, I accidentally taught her to flap her wings on command instead. Trying to put my fingers under her wings forced her to flap for balance instead of spreading them because I don't think she was sure of what I was trying to get her to do ... and also she's about five or six inches tall, so she was falling off her perch because of me poking her.

I think teaching her this trick encouraged her to use flapping as an attention getting behavior. The first time she did it, I responded to her right away, and since then she's done it instead of screaming.

She's also very clingy like Andromeda's GCC. For the most part, she's with me wherever I go when I'm home. She uses my hoodies like a jungle gym, and talks to me when I'm being very quiet. She does not pluck her feathers though, so I rotate the toys and perches in her cage to keep her entertained and give her a lot of different things to destroy while I'm gone. Hopefully it's not something she starts doing.