Thinking of getting a parrot

[Rachael-Louise]

Hello

I am here to do some research into which parrot would be the best fit for our family and whether best to adopt of find a breeder.
We are a family of 4- two children (aged 5 and 10)
We would like a parrot with a kind nature, one that likes attention and is affectionate and creates strong bonds with human family members, ideally would like one which talks and can be potty trained, a breed less prone to health problems.
Thinking a cockatoo or African grey.
How easy are they to care for and keep happy and healthy?

[Pajarita]

Hi, Rachel, welcome to the forum and thank you for doing research before making a final decision.

Now, cockatoos and grays? Well, they are the hardest to keep healthy and happy. A cockatoo does well in a household where there are children but a gray would hate it (they do NOT like busy households with noise and children running or playing around them or where its strict schedule is not kept 1005). Grays are birds for quiet, older people who hardly ever leave the house and have not much else to do than spend time with the bird. As I said, cockatoos love hullabaloo but it also excites them and an excited too is a very LOUD and unpredictable bird (they tend to bite when they get excited) PLUS their beak and claws are big and strong and even when they do not want to hurt you, they do (a cockatoo holding tight to your arm will make holes in your skin).

Aside from that, all parrots have what you would call a 'kind nature' (there is no aggression gene in them because they are not predators or live in a hierachical society -basically, they never have to fight for anything they need), they are all affectionate and love, love attention (they are highly social animals that mate for life and live with their family all their lives - which is more a con than a pro for almost all species because they need the attention/affection 24/7/365 and we cannot give it to them) but they also all have the capacity to bite -HARD- when they feel they are not being understood and not even adults are good at reading them, much less children (we are used to mammal pets and they are completely different).

Not all of them talk, not even toos or grays, and potty training is dangerous to them because they pee, poop and lay eggs from the same orifice (cloaca) and 'holding it in' causes cloacal prolapse, a serious health problem that requires difficult and expensive surgery to correct.

Now, you are going to find many people that will tell you that their bird is potty trained and fine - and you will find lots of people who also say that you would do fine with a too or gray but then most people actually believe this and the ones that know the truth will lie through their teeth because they are not willing to admit they made a mistake.

I would suggest you re-evaluate your expectations because they are not realistic- there is no single parrot that is an easy or 'good' pet. They all require an inordinate amount of time spent with them (up to 5 hours of one-on-one, depending on the species, and 4 hour of out-of-cage), they are labor intensive (need to prepare food for them on a daily basis and they create an unholy mess every single day of their lives) and their medical care is very expensive (twice as much as any dog or cat) plus they need a strict solar schedule with 2 hour exposure to both dawn and dusk without any artificial lights on and, that is, in my personal experience, the hardest thing about keeping a parrot. I am a slave to this schedule, running my errands after they go back into their cages for the night, never having people over for dinner during the entire winter, getting up before 5 am in the summer, etc. etc.

Dogs, cats and even children are super easy compared to a parrot. But, if you have your heart set on one and will be able to keep the light schedule (you will have to do this for the next 20 to 50 years, depending on the species), cook for it and find somebody familiar to the bird to stay with when you travel anywhere, I would suggest you adopt an adult male quaker that is a 'good boy' from a rescue - babies are wonderful but, if you don't have the experience and time (you need to be there all day long for, at least, 4 months or so) to raise them right, they end up screwed up and with what people call 'behavioral problems' like screaming, biting, plucking and even self-mutilating.

Parrots are the hardest animals to make into good pets. We love them -and with good reason- but we can't really care for them properly (these are undomesticated species with very specific physical and emotional needs) so it takes A LOT of work, time, effort and studying - things most people don't really have in a normal household.