A questions that we often hear at Birdtricks is: “what is a good first bird to get?”. It’s a difficult question and one that I answer reluctantly. I will try to offer my opinion…

First, I want to say that I don’t really believe in “starter” birds. It is often said that a smaller bird is more suitable for the first time owner. I don’t entirely agree.

All birds are created equally. There is no one species of parrot that requires less care or commitment than the others. Every single species needs the same considerations to health and diet, enrichment and attention. In this regard, there is no diffference between a budgie or a hyacinth macaw. Basic care requirements are not minimized because a parrot is smaller.

You might ask yourself why a larger bird is more appealing to you. Believe me when I tell you that a smaller bird is every bit the parrot that a larger bird is.They are as intelligent, interactive and demanding  – they just come in a smaller, less intrusive package. A larger parrot is not a better parrot.

There are, however, significant logistical differences in the ownership of larger vs smaller birds to consider. Size is very relevant in the following areas:

Vocalization: It only makes sense that the larger the bird, the louder the voice. If your hearing is sensitive, or if you have nearby neighbors that own shotguns, you might reconsider getting a larger parrot (check THIS out).

Biting: As a new owner, you will find yourself at a disadvantage when it comes to adeptly reading your bird’s body language. If you harbor a fear of being bitten, and chances are you will be at some point, a smaller bird might be right for you. Birds can sense apprehension and some will use it to intimidate and manipulate you.

Housing: Do you have the space in your living room for a cage that is 3 or 4 times the size of your refrigerator? Don’t forget about the play stand.

Damage: The bigger the bird, the bigger the beak, the bigger the holes in your shirts/furniture/carpeting/doorways…

Certainly, there are species that are correctly defined as high maintenance, either behaviorally or in their special needs. For instance:

• The lory owner needs to be well educated about their unique diet and will need to find creative solutions to the “messes” they make because of their nectar-based diet. They don’t so much poop as squirt and the wall behind the cage will not fare well. Nor will closely placed furniture, or the floor, for that matter.
• The african grey can be overly sensitive to its environment, can be phobic, and will mimic every sound emitted in your household. This can be endearing, annoying and/or embarrassing. Dad will have to stop swearing like a sailor and couples will not want to keep their african grey’s cage in their bedroom. (A discovery some friends made when their bird replayed the audio portion of the night before in the presence of their dinner guests.)
• Then there’s the cockatoo who might be best served by an owner that has some serious experience in parenting, as they require someone who is adept at dispensing tough love to keep them from developing bad habits. Cockatoos always seem to be wanting things that are not good for them.They are constantly seeking attention. Sometimes you must deny them and it is difficult not to give in at times. It’s easy to make mistakes with them and many should have the number of a local rescue tattooed under their wing.(Some will simply come with the number 666.) Cockatoos are my favorite species, but this is a bird that I really think belongs in the hands of an experienced bird person.

In the end, the answer to the question of which bird to get is more related to the person considering parrot ownership than it is to any parrot species. It boils down to what kind of potential bird owner you are, what your circumstances allow for and how tolerant you are to the behaviors that certain species are famous for. There is no patented “right” first bird.

I have watched people who wanted a macaw as a first bird do the “responsible” thing and start with small birds, eventually graduate to a medium sized birds, and finally get their macaw. The result is a house full of birds, all needing attention, when all they wanted originally was a single macaw to dote on. I think that people should get the bird they want, but ONLY when certain, beyond a doubt, that they are up to the challenge. Many new owners do very well with a large first bird. I have also seen people fail miserably with cockatiels, who are known for their friendly and compliant natures.

Know what you are getting into. Exhaustively research any species you are considering. Understand that ANY bird will be a huge, long-term commitment. Most importantly, be brutally honest about your limitations as a potential bird owner and don’t go for a bird that you aren’t able to give 100% to.

 

I am writing this post at the request of someone who once lost a baby african grey to what she calls ” total ignorance on my part”. She learned a hard lesson at the expense of a baby bird, and she wants no one else to make the same mistake.

She searched for, and found, a breeder who was willing to teach her how to hand feed so that she could take a grey home to begin bonding with it in the early stages of its life. A couple of weeks after she brought the bird home, she got it in her head that the formula was too thick for such a small bird, and began diluting it to the point where it was nearly the consistency of water. The result: malnutrition and eventual death.

Many new owners-to-be seem to believe that the bonding process with a baby bird begins during hand feeding.People think that a bond with their new bird will be stronger if they do it themselves.This is not true. During hand feeding, a baby bird learns about trusting humans in general, not just a particular person. A bird will go on to have the closest of bonds with the human being who takes her home to love and care for her for the rest of her life.

Many inexperienced people are taking birds that are too young home to do a job that is not for the unqualified.There are MANY things that can go wrong during the hand feeding process: aspiration, crop burn, crop stasis and bacterial infection, to name a few. You may have never heard of some of these terms, which is reason enough for for you not to consider hand feeding.You have to know how to recognize that the crop is not emptying as it should and what to do in that event. You need to know how to monitor the baby’s weight gain. You have to know when and how to begin weaning. It is SO much more than simply syringing food into a beak. Even the most experienced lose birds from time to time.

The process of weaning onto solid foods is even trickier. There is much damage that can be done to parrot whose sense of security is compromised during this crucial period in its emotional and social development. Aside from those risks, a bird that is weaned poorly may not ever develop proper eating habits. This will affect its health for the rest of its life.

An ethical and responsible breeder will not let you take home an unweaned bird, and you should not demand the right to this experience with the bird you intend to buy. Any good that you feel might be done in the area of bonding through hand feeding yourself will be overshadowed by injuring (or killing) your bird during feedings, or by emotionally damaging him with improper techniques.This will certainly negatively impact your relationship with your bird.

Let those with experience raise your bird until it is ready to be delivered into your care. You can then bond with an emotionally secure and healthy bird that is ready for life in a new home.

I have a friend who rescues parrots in her city, sort of as a hobby and just out of the goodness of her heart.  She takes in several parrots a year, rehabs them and eventually places them into carefully screened new homes.
A couple of years ago, a twenty-something year old man contacted her and asked her to take in his young timneh african grey that he could no longer afford to care for.
This sweetly dispositioned parrot was in good health and appeared well maintained when he arrived. When asked what the parrot’s name was, the young man looked down at the floor and seemed reluctant to answer. Finally, he admitted that the bird’s unfortunate given name was…well, let’s just say it begins with “F” and rhymes with “truckhead” As you can imagine, “Little Trucker“, as he was affectionately called, had a very colorful vocabulary overall. No big surprise, my friend needed to change this bird’s name right away.

Our parrots have a very limited use of our language. They make connections to the things and people around them by using labels like: “blue”, “ball”, or “play”. Some go on to verbalize an understanding of descriptive words like: “hot” and “cold”, “hard” and “soft”, “big” and “small”. It’s all about having a name for everything. This includes themselves.
Their name and how it is used tells your parrot a lot. First, it is your verbal connection to the bird. When you call to Kiwi in the morning as you are getting up for the day, it tells her that she is valued. There is no question in her mind that you are addressing her specifically and haven’t forgotten about her or her needs during the course of the night. It is an important  connection. Secondly the tone in which you use her name belies your mood and intentions.
Consider the impact on a bird to suddenly lose that connection.  New home, new owners…new name?  Really??

While shopping for supplies one day I saw a new cockatiel in the bird store that I often frequented in Chicago. When I asked about him, I was told that he was brought in  by a customer who had learned that her son had developed an allergy to the bird. He was sweet and pretty and I couldn’t resist taking him home with me that day. He came with his cage, but not his name. That was the one thing they had forgotten to ask the formers owners. It was a few months before they could get a return call from them for this vital piece of information.
He was settling in nicely with my growing flock of cockatiels, but wasn’t very interactive with the family.

The call finally came that the former owners had been reached and we now had the bird’s name. I ran upstairs and greeted him with a big “HI COCOA!”, and something happened. His body language suddenly changed, and he came to the side of the cage wanting to be taken out. He was overjoyed at hearing his name and from that day on he was a different bird.  My daughter and I still talk about the event to this day. He felt recognized by us, finally, and it changed him and our relationship.

It is completely understandable that one might want to rename a rehomed bird, and it can be done successfully over a period of time. It’s a simple, but slow, procedure that involves phasing in the new name in a way that makes it clear to the bird that this new label applies to him. During this transition, you will want not to exclude the former name entirely so as not to break the connection with your bird while you are establishing the new one. Your bird needs to be called by name, whatever it is you call him.
The easiest and quickest way to change a bird’s name is by giving a new one that sounds similar to the old one. Examples of this are an owner who changed her bird’s name from Panda to Brandi and anothers change from Lizbon to Bonnie. Both were accomplished in a short time.

Back to Truckhead: When the time came to rehome him, my friend made no secret of his background. She had already experienced some unfortunate timing in the delivery of his expletives, once during a business meeting at her house and another time when her daughter’s wedding planner was present. She explained to the new owners that the best way to make these words lose their power was to never use them and never respond to them.

He is doing well in his new home.  He is now called Lucky, and indeed he is.

Visually sexing a parrot is never 100% reliable, with the exception of the dimorphic eclectus, whose genders are entirely different colors and were thought to be two different species in the wild for the many years before they became a popular companion parrot.


While DNA or surgical sexing are the only guaranteed ways of determining your bird’s sex with certainty, well, that and finding an egg in the pellet bowl, there are a few parrots that allow us to make an educated guess visually.

In the cockatoo family, it’s in the eyes. The females typically have a lighter, chestnut color to their eyes, which is most easily seen in strong light. The male’s eyes are a very dark brown, nearly black. Additionally in the male galah, or rose breasted cockatoo, the eyes rings become rough in texture and tinged with pink (although this is not the case with some males who do not get enough exposure to sunlight.)

The male standard cockatiel will have a bright yellow head, with clearly defined orange cheek patches, while the female’s head coloring is less distinct. She will also have barring marking the underside of her long tail.

In the budgie, the male typically has a light purple colored cere (the area around the nostrils), and the female’s is shades of pink to brown.

I had heard several years ago about a method of visually sexing african greys, but I had for one reason or another thought it to be too unreliable because of the way feather color varies in that species.  I had actually snooped under the tail feathers of several greys of unknown gender and never found those tell-tale silver tipped feathers.  I suppose it is possible that all of them were male.

Someone sent me this link recently, and as I have questioned my friends with female greys, most have reported that theirs have this feather coloring. I feel that it is a fairly safe bet that if your has these feathers, it is likely a female. If it doesn’t, I think the bird should still be considered of unknown gender.

I couldn’t let this special holiday pass without sharing with you some of the brilliant costumes a couple of friends have come up with for their birds…

First up…the always fabulous Cody, who reinvents himself on every holiday so we may bask in his magnificence.  Cody couldn’t decide what to be this year…

And Carl, the bare eyed cockatoo, and flock mate Duchess (Duch), congo african grey, in years past and present…

I don’t know about you, but I can’t stop giggling!

Your best chance at a healthy and successful diet for your parrot is in the variety of foods you put in her bowl. By rotating the different foods available in the different food groups such as vegetables, fruits and grains, you increase the chances of hitting upon just the right combination, at the right time, for your individual bird.
In the wild, some birds will dine on the same food source for weeks until it is used up, or gone out of season. They then move on to another food. In our homes, birds don’t have the luxury of choice. They get what we serve, and may not always be what they need at that time.

Every species has different requirements for their diet. A macaw needs a diet that is lower in protein and higher in fat than a cockatoo who requires the opposite. Amazons need abundant vitamin A, african greys need calcium, and so on. Even this is a generalization. Within the macaw family, for instance, the hyacinth needs an even higher fat percentage than the average blue and gold. To further complicate things, each individual bird has nutritional needs unique only to them.
This creates a lot of challenges for parrot owners. Since we aren’t able to determine the exact set of needs in a particular bird, and since you will never hear your bird say “Polly want a vitamin D3 supplement”, there’s a lot of guess work involved. The best way to cover all the bases is to offer a bit of everything. Your bird knows what she needs. When she goes through a picky phase, she may be telling you that she needs a change in her diet.

Try stepping outside your comfort zone by trying veggies that you are unfamiliar with. I had no idea what bok choy or kohlrabi was before I had parrots. Throw in the left over parsley. Serve whole carrots and beets with the tops attached. Give a piece of whole grain toast for breakfast, or with peanut butter later in the day for a snack. Has your bird ever tried a parsnip? Mine love them. Try to change the menu as often as possible and include as many foods from as many groups as you can.Your bird will have a healthier diet and be more willing to try new foods in the future.