Please give me your opinion!

[MrCavyMadness]

Hi everyone! First of all, sorry if this is posted in the wrong topic, admin, please fix if wrong. Anyways, I have quite a predicament that I'm trying very hard to make the right decision about.

As you probably can tell by my username, I do have guinea pigs. 2 males, Guinness and Keko. I have had them for 2 years, and I love them to death. However, recently on birdbreeders.com, I found a baby hahns for sale near me. They are literally my dream bird and I want one so bad. However, I don't have the time to care for the gp's and the two birds, so I have to choose one over the other.

At first, there was no way I could get rid of my babies, I love them too much. But i started thinking. This year, i am going to be a junior in High School. Since the guinea pigs are only 2, they have at least 3 years left to live. My parents do not like the gap's, and refuse to take care of them when I leave for college. On the other hand, they do like my bird, and they would be fine with taking care of another one for a very short period of time.

Don't worry, my birds will not be staying with my parents all alone for my college years. I have my whole future planned out, and the most they'll have to stay home with my parents is 9 months, in which i will be coming home very often. *Please don't worry about this part, I just want help with decision making*

Now, since I figure I will have to rehome the guinea pigs anyways next year, the Hahns would be the better (and much longer) decision to make, considering I will be able to keep in his whole life.

I know I am a kid, and "don't know what I want" apparently, but I do know that this is what I want. Im not going to be rehoming my birds in the future just because. I am going to be an avian and exotic vet, and I plan to keep both my birds their whole lives.

Right now, i only have one bird - a cockatiel.

Do you guys think I should rehome the pigs and get my long living dream bird, or keep the guinea pigs, rehome them next year, and miss out.

Thank you!

[Saerphe]

I would say to keep your guinea pigs and wait until you're finished university to commit to another bird. There will be other Hahn's Macaws in the future, from breeders, shelters, or previous homes that can't care for them anymore.

Also, your family might like your current bird, but cockatiels are notoriously agreeable birds. They're gentle, relatively quiet, and affectionate, and easy for less experienced people to care for. A Hahn's macaw is going to be much more difficult for them to look after. Even if you have everything planned out now, it's unlikely that that is exactly how everything will pan out for you and your potential bird.

I don't know what the situation is with your family is regarding your animals. Why don't they like your guinea pigs? Is it noise, or smell, or just because they're rodents? If they don't like guinea pig noise, they almost certainly won't like Hahn's macaw noise. I can speak from some experience in having to leave my birds with my parents while I was away at university. I had a pair of budgies that I rescued and had initially planned to rehome anyway because I would be leaving for school soon and couldn't take them with me. My parents decided to leet me keep them,but when it came time for me to go and leave the birds behind, it only took them a couple weeks before they decided that they couldn't handle caring for them, and they didn't want to deal with the noise and mess anymore. I agreed to let them rehome the birds because it would have been unfair to them to ask them to continue keeping them in my absence when they weren't equipped with the knowledge or patience to continue caring for the birds.

Also, you have your cockatiel to consider. If you wouldn't have time to continue caring for your guinea pigs if you got the macaw, then are you sure you would have time to take proper care of your tiel? You would have to keep your macaw in quarantine for the first 30 days before you could introduce your macaw to the same house as your tiel - which means splitting your time evenly between the macaw and your tiel, probably inside and outside of your home, to ensure that they get proper care and enough social time with you in order to be happy. And that's everything that has to happen before you can start introducing them to each other socially - there's no guarantee that they'll get along well enough to be able to share your attention. A Hahn's macaw could very easily attack and kill a cockatiel if they ever got into a fight. Taking all these factors into account, there is a very good chance that you will also have to end up rehoming your tiel.

The point I'm trying to make here is, it would probably be best for you to wait until you've finished school and are financially stable before making a major commitment like taking on a mini-macaw. Continue caring for your current animals, keep doing plenty of research for the next few years. You might even discover that you like a different kind of bird more than you do Hahn's macaws, and decide to get another species instead.

[MrCavyMadness]

My parents don't mind the noise at all. They hate the smell and time of guinea pigs. Their cage cleanings take forever and since they're on fleece i have to spot clean everyday. My birds don't take me nearly that long and their cages are always clean. Thanks for your reply.

But, again, my guinea pigs will be gone in a year whether I like it or not, I just thought that If i got the hahns, I could have him a lot longer and won't have to rehome him. My parents love birds, not just cockatiels, and don't mind caring for them. Most of the time, Ill be home anyways. Then I'll move them up to school in an apartment with me when I can. Thanks for replying.. Im torn

[Pajarita]

I agree with Saerphe. I know it's grating when you are young and people say you are too young to know what you want but, unfortunately, it's the truth. At your age, nobody really knows what is going to happen as an adult - sheesh, not even adults know! I was sure I was going to be a veterinarian but life interfered and I ended up with a degree in Business Management instead.

I have two concerns about your situation.

1. You are too quick to decide to get rid of pets you already have. I did rescue work full time for 6 years and we would NEVER adopt out an animal to anybody who had gotten rid of a previous one for no good reason because if you cannot commit to one, most likely, you won't commit to another.

2. You are in no position to take in a baby bird if your entire plan depends on your parents taking it for months and months, if not years, at a time. Mind you, I have no problem with the concept of a bird staying home while the young adult goes to college but that would imply that the bird does not belong to the young adult because you can't make a baby bond with you and disappear from its life in a matter of a couple of years. It's cruel and it never works (I have had several birds given up because the owner went to college). And Saerphe is also correct in that cockatiels are amiable, sweet-tempered little things but not Hahn's. They are actually nothing but glorified conures and, as such, they are loud, nippy and temperamental - and that's under very good husbandry!

I don't mean to pop your balloon, you seem to have very good intentions and it's always good to start off with a plan but, because of your age and the way life is nowadays (so unpredictable and complex), you need to be flexible about it and parrots don't allow for flexibility. Personally, if I were in your shoes, I would keep the guinea pigs, adopt an adult cockatiel as a mate for the one I have and volunteer at a bird rescue (nothing like hands-on experience, invaluable when it comes to been an avian vet!).

[MrCavyMadness]

Thank you The only thing is when I do have to git rid of my guinea pigs, I will have my cockatiel. I'm just saying that I have to git rid of them anyways. Thanks for your reply

[Wolf]

I am not here to bust your cookies or anything, but I am seeing one thing with you and this topic and that is that you are not looking for advice, you are looking for agreement that your choice is the way to go. If you doubt this than read this post yourself from an objective stand point.
So my advice is to stop asking for advice that you don't want to hear anyway and make up your mind as to what you are going to do. We will try to help you with your bird/ s regardless of whether we agree with the choice or not.

[ParrotsForLife]

I would keep my guinea pigs until its time for them to be rehomed and honestly I dont know how people can sort of swap one animal for another its like saying im gonna rehome my guinea pigs because I want a hahns macaw I know thats not what your doing but its kinda the same.I also want another bird but I wont until im an Adult and im only 15 now I can wait a few more years I want to be an Avian vet when im older.

[Saerphe]

My parents don't mind the noise at all. They hate the smell and time of guinea pigs. Their cage cleanings take forever and since they're on fleece i have to spot clean everyday. My birds don't take me nearly that long and their cages are always clean. Thanks for your reply.

But, again, my guinea pigs will be gone in a year whether I like it or not, I just thought that If i got the hahns, I could have him a lot longer and won't have to rehome him. My parents love birds, not just cockatiels, and don't mind caring for them. Most of the time, Ill be home anyways. Then I'll move them up to school in an apartment with me when I can. Thanks for replying.. Im torn

If they don't like the idea of taking such a large amount of time caring for your guinea pigs and doing a lot of spot cleaning, then I think the novelty of taking care of a larger bird will quickly wear off. I spend a great deal of time doing spot-cleaning looking after my conure (who is about the size of a cockatiel) when she's out of her cage, and cleaning the area around her cage as well, and I'm not a super meticulous person. If I was more intense about keeping everything super clean, I would be sweeping and mopping every day, wiping down bird-related surfaces every day, spot-cleaning after my bird goes poop anywhere where she's outside of her cage, and probably doing a load of laundry every day.

A Hahn's macaw is going to require a lot more cleaning, because not only do they poop often (like any other bird), but their poops are going to be bigger than your cockatiel's. Also, (and you may or may not have noticed this with your cockatiel) parrots take great joy in throwing their food around. When you have a bird that eats predominantly fresh produce (as should be the case with birds), the food they throw around is going to start to smell relatively quickly, and is also going to stick to EVERYTHING. My bird gets a berry or two (typically raspberries or blackberries) out of a frozen mix I keep around to add to her grains and veggies every day, and the area around her cage quickly starts looking like a murder scene because bits of bright red berry and berry juice go everywhere.

Pajarita's right about the Hahn's macaw personality. They can be very nippy, and I'm sure your parents will quickly lose patience with a bird that regularly bites (especially when it can draw blood and, in the worst cases, result in the need for stitches). Cockatiels can't bite super hard (just hard enough to break skin, and maybe draw a little blood in extreme cases), and even though they can bite, they usually don't. When it comes to caring for cockatiels versus pretty much any other parrot in the pet trade, you're going to end up comparing apples to oranges.

Also, that sweet baby Hahn's macaw is eventually going to hit puberty, or otherwise start testing boundaries, and if you or your parents aren't prepared for the kind of commitment to training and socialization that parrots require, you are going to run into problems. My conure was clearly not well socialized by her previous owner when she was in the young and impressionable stage, and now every time my brother tries to handle her, she attempts to tear his fingers to shreds - I haven't been able to let strangers or neighbours try to handle her in any way at all yet. A lot of people don't understand that they have to expect parrots to bite and be prepared for it, and don't know that they shouldn't take it personally when it does happen. That's one of the major reasons why so many parrots end up in shelters.

Not to mention the level of destructiveness is exponentially larger in pretty much any bird other than a cockatiel. A Hahn's macaw will find ways to get into everything you don't want them to get into. Though the opportunities for sheer destruction are minimal in my current apartment, my GCC has already pulled at least one keyboard key off my laptop (and almost got another), tries to climb on and chew my laptop at every opportunity, and has left many scratches on my glasses - lenses and frames. A mini macaw is going to be capable of much more than that, being bigger and more powerful than the average GCC.

Also, school is going to take up a lot more time than you think, especially if you're in the sciences, because in addition to taking regular classes, you'll also have lab practicums to attend as part of your degree(s). I only graduated university this past May, and let me tell you, even if it had been possible for me to have pets while I was away at school, I do not regret waiting to make a commitment to giving a bird a permanent home. I was in no way equipped to give a parrot the kind of care it deserved, in terms of finances, time, or emotional capacity. I wasn't even really equipped to take care of the hermit crabs I briefly snuck into my dorm room, and ended up having to give them up after my first semester with them (turns out travelling with hermit crabs is a lot more difficult than you'd think).

I know it's frustrating to hear a lot of people tell you that the thing you really want right now is actually a bad idea. But take it from someone who isn't that much older or farther along in life than you - you absolutely will not regret waiting until you're done school to make this kind of commitment.

The thing is, in my short lifetime I have had 3 budgies, a cockatiel, and 6 chickens (technically my parents' hens, but I took care of most of their upkeep when I was home from university), and of those 10 birds only 1 has spent the entirety of their life in my home. 2 budgies, my cockatiel, and 3 of the chickens (the other 3 were stolen. Never found out who did it or why) had to be rehomed because I (or my parents) simply weren't capable of making the kind of commitment to them that they would have needed us to make, and we weren't equipped to provide for all of their needs. The reason I've chosen to commit to my GCC now is because I can afford to keep her, have the time to provide for her, and don't have to rely on my parents to help me care for her, which makes her my responsibility alone.

This sort of thing is why I am imploring you not to make such a massive commitment before you've even started university, let alone finished it. Most people wouldn't even think of getting married or having a child before they finished their schooling and for good reason - they aren't anywhere near prepared to make that kind of high-maintenance, lifelong commitment. As I like to say, a parrot is basically a jealous two year-old who can fly and has a power tool attached to their face, and will be that way for the next 20+ years. A Hahn's macaw is probably going to live for close to 40 years - are you really sure you're ready to live with a bird that is going to require careful dietary monitoring, consistent training, enrichment, and socialization, and CONSTANT cleaning for that long? If I'm totally honest, I don't think anyone is ready for that level of commitment when they're still in high school.

I hope you understand where I'm coming from with this. Regardless of what you ultimately decide, I and everyone else on this forum only want what is best for you and your bird(s).

[MrCavyMadness]

Thank you everyone. I probably will end up with the pigs. Im not dissapointed, because i do honestly love them like a kid, I just feel like I'm giving up a great opportunity to acquire my dream bird. I don't find them very often. Thanks for all of your help.. Everyone on here says guinea pigs, and everyone in my family and that i talk to in person is telling me bird. Im still torn. Thank you all for your time

[ParrotsForLife]

Thank you everyone. I probably will end up with the pigs. Im not dissapointed, because i do honestly love them like a kid, I just feel like I'm giving up a great opportunity to acquire my dream bird. I don't find them very often. Thanks for all of your help.. Everyone on here says guinea pigs, and everyone in my family and that i talk to in person is telling me bird. Im still torn. Thank you all for your time

Your asking for our opinion you choose what you wanna do if you really want to get the Macaw then go for it but I would wait until im older but thats me.