please help uspick our parrot

[georgia and steve]

hi there,
me and my husband have been looking at all types of parrots and we are now not sure what would suit us was looking at quaker's but was told these birds are to much for a family home.we both work but are both home by 4pm and want to spend much time training our bird to talk and do tricks if we can work out what kind of bird we should be looking for... please help us

[marie83]

Well I guess what you mean by too much for a family home, Is it just you, your partner and budgie, or do you have children too?
You may get home at 4pm but what does that mean for your birds, how much time will they really get out of their cages? How much time will they get directly interacting with you? How much experience do you have with birds already? Is you budgie your first or have you had others previously?
Really hard to give any advice on the info you have already given us. Is noise an issue to you or possibly neighbours? How important is speech and trick training really to you because some birds will never pick certain things up.

Actually I've just pinched this off of another thread, it is something Michael posted but I think it is very necessary for you consider everything on it carefully. These are some of the drawbacks so you need to consider as most of them are quite likely to happen if not dealt with properly.

-Flying
-Screaming
-Biting
-Jealousy
-Fighting with other birds/pets
-Hates people
-Messy
-Smelly
-Dusty
-Allergenic
-Boring
-Costly
-Demanding
-Destructive
-Fearful
-Cunning/manipulative
-Territorial
-Big (needs a lot of space, difficult to transport)
-Small (hard to find, can't harness)
-Long living

[terri]

I like my Blk Hd caiques.Thats why I have two. They need a large wide cage ,LOTS OF TOYS ,{mine like those bouncy swing things] Foodwise they love their food not picky at all [Impressive eaters] You have other birds .Im a big fan of birds having friends. But these birds are great family birds .As you can see I have alot of birds.My caiques love everyone in my family[ they just love people] and are the birds out of mine that will go to strangers .They are alot alike even though I got them a year apart.Yes they make noise [the morning and night thing] they need to be trained lots of structure [like any bird] or they become monsters! Check them out

[cmaygar]

I had a Quaker for 24 years and she was a great pet. She was LOUD at times, which is a normal Quaker characteristic. I recently bought 2 green cheek conures (one 4-month old and one 2.5-month old). Green Cheek Conures are considered to be the quiet conures and don't have anything close to the volume that my Quaker had. They do tricks, they're very acrobatic, they are affectionate and a lot of fun. They also come in a variety of beautiful colors. They are also small and don't require a huge cage. I have each bird in a good-sized cage (24" x 36" high) that allows them to climb and swing on their toys. You may want to take a look at this wonderful little reasonably quiet conure that does not have the screaming issues of other conures or of some of the other parrot species. posting.php?mode=reply&f=12&t=8319#