Hello first time parrot owner

[Pajarita]

Yes, be very careful at the bird fair. I never attend them both because I don't patronize places were companion animals are commercialized and also because I know of people who have bought baby birds at fairs that were sick with chlamydiosis, polyoma and even PPD.

Now, as to screaming and not going into the room until she calms down... I know that this is the most common advice but, in my personal opinion, it's wrong and plain cruel and by doing this all you are teaching your bird is that no matter how desperate it is for company/safety/reassurance, you simply do not care. Parrots are highly social animals, they are born into a large family and live their entire lives until they die surrounded by them 24/7/365 so, to them, solitude is terribly scary. They feel vulnerable and anxious and not reacting to their screams is like saying let a baby cry himself to sleep, don't pick him up, don't sing to him, just ignore him so he learns not to. People talk about this been a 'bad' behavior, that the bird is been naughty and that you shouldn't enable them but I often wondered if people could understand what they are saying when they scream if they still felt that way. Because, in my mind, when a bird screams, he is saying something like: "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Somebody come! I am afraid when I am alone! Where are you? Why I am been punished this way?!" I take in birds that have issues, most of these issues are behavioral and I've taken in several screamers. The last one was a cockatoo that had been left in his cage all day long by himself while his owners worked so he was in the habit of screaming all day long. It took 10 months to break him out of it and it almost drove us crazy (you have NO idea how loud toos are and how incredibly persistent they can be with their screams - OMG!) but I kept him in the dining room where he could see me all the time and not only took him out almost all day long but also always went over when he screamed. In time, he realized he did not need to do it because he would always have company and he gradually stopped. Nowadays, he vocalizes in the morning and the evening (which is normal) and that's about it! Not a peep out of him during the day.

As to diet, I would recommend you don't take anybody's word for what is best. Breeders are not bird keepers, they are bird producers and there is a huge difference between a person who loves them and a person who exploits them. And most people don't even do any real research on their natural diets and just repeat what they have heard or told by others. Roudybush did diet studies but all the studies were short term (not more than 11 months) and they only used cockatiels (which are granivores and not canope feeders), they use feed grade ingredients, soy (iffy although the cheapest source of protein available) and not organic so, in truth, they are not what you would call the best or even the second best. Pellets are, by far, the easiest thing to feed but, if you go by what these birds eat in the wild and know anything about nutrition, you will see that they are not the best option by far. If you still want to go the pellet route, at least, feed Tops which are organic, human grade ingredients and have no soy or man-made vitamins and minerals but food-derived ones.