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Project Parrots

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  • More
    • Home
    • About
    • Current Needs
    • BIRDS
      • ALL BIRDS
      • Rico
      • Cleo
      • Marabou
      • Monet
      • Zip
      • Zoom
      • Ava
      • Olivia
      • Bluee
      • Clyde
      • Rusty
      • Fennel
      • Sugar
      • Widget
      • Sunny
      • Bean
      • Lefty
      • Touche
      • ChiChi
      • Morgan
      • Rasta
      • Hymie
      • Storm
    • Adoption
  • Home
  • About
  • Current Needs
  • BIRDS
    • ALL BIRDS
    • Rico
    • Cleo
    • Marabou
    • Monet
    • Zip
    • Zoom
    • Ava
    • Olivia
    • Bluee
    • Clyde
    • Rusty
    • Fennel
    • Sugar
    • Widget
    • Sunny
    • Bean
    • Lefty
    • Touche
    • ChiChi
    • Morgan
    • Rasta
    • Hymie
    • Storm
  • Adoption

considerations Before Adopting A Parrot

ABOUT THE HUMAN

Time Commitment

  • Aside from the time it takes to care for your bird on a daily basis, choosing to bring a bird into your home is a long-term commitment. Budgies, one of the shortest-lived parrots can live 7 - 15 years or more. Most parrots live an average of 30+ years. Larger parrots can live to be over 70 years. Can you commit to caring for a bird for its entire life, even when it becomes inconvenient to do so?


Financial Commitment

  • Aside from the initial cost of acquiring a parrot, either via adoption, rehoming or purchasing from a breeder, parrots are one of the most expensive pets to maintain IF YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT. Their requirement of…
  •  a fresh food diet
  • specialty veterinary care
  • natural toys for enrichment
  • appropriate caging
  • perches
  • cleaning supplies
  • training
  • Among other things brings the annual cost to thousands of dollars, especially with larger species. 
  • If you can’t afford to take your bird to the vet every year for their annual exam, can you really afford a bird?
  • If you can’t afford to purchase natural toys (or even toy parts to make them yourself) to provide them enrichment, can you really afford a bird?
  • Regular veterinary care, natural toys, large & safe caging are not for “spoiling your bird”. These are not optional parts of parrot ownership - they are the minimum required for your parrot to thrive. 
  • If you are only able to keep your bird alive rather than thrive, are you right home for one?


Abide By The Rules

  • Parrots are not for everyone. Most people initially notice how loud they are, which is enough to consider them a nuisance. Before committing to a parrot, make sure the other people in your household are also on board. It is also wise to check with your landlord if you are renting or your HOA if you own your home to ensure that you are allowed to have a parrot on the property. 


Can YOU handle the noise?

  • You’ll find loads of information online telling you parrots are loud, but you will not fully grasp how loud and obnoxious their vocalizations can be, even with smaller birds. 
  • Yes, there is a lot we can do to minimize how loud they are and how often, but birds vocalize loudly for perfectly natural reasons whether or not they make sense to us. It is how they communicate and express themselves. It is part of being a bird and part of having one in our home. 
  • While smaller species aren’t as loud as Cockatoos and Macaws, they do tend to make noise more frequently - some even all day long. This is normal for their species when they are happy and healthy and that can be incredibly frustrating for some people. 
  • Just because your bird is not at first, doesn’t mean it won’t get loud in the future. Because it finds it fun to do, because you’ve reinforced it somehow or because it is a sound that it has heard once and now feels the need to repeat it every day for the rest of its life - like some birds tend to do when the smoke alarm batteries die… 


Can you handle the MESS?

  • Parrots flick food out of their cages as they eat. This is a natural, instinctive behavior that serves a purpose in the wild to feed critters on the ground and to propagate seeds. In your home, there is no good purpose but the behavior still exists. Stuck morsels end up on your floor, on your walls, and all over the bird’s cage. Though most droppings fall to the bottom, parrots often hang on to the sides of their cages and poop straight out so their droppings also end up on your floor and walls. 


Your Health 

  • A common health issue related to living with parrots is allergies. Because parrots produce considerable amounts of dander (some species more than others) they often cause allergies or exasperate respiratory-related illnesses, like COPD and Asthma. 
  • For both your parrot’s health and your own health, it is recommended to use an air purifier where your parrot spends most of its time. 
  • To protect your health, it is also recommended to wear a mask while cleaning up after your bird. 

ABOUT THE BIRD

DIET

  • Diet is the most important thing you need to get right. It is going to make the biggest difference in your bird’s behavior (think biting, screaming, plucking), health and overall wellbeing. 
  • A whole food diet of raw veggies, grains, sprouts and cooked legumes
    • Fresh, frozen thawed or freeze dried (not dehydrated or cooked)
  • Not all pellets are created equal
  • Birds do need seeds & nuts but only a small amount as treats for training or foraging


SLEEP

  • 12 hours of sleep
    • They require this much sleep just like we require 7 - 8 hours on average. 
    • Birds are photosensitive, which means they are very sensitive to daylight cycles. Consistently providing 12 hours of sleep year-round helps to prevent hormonal behaviors and, in females, unnecessary egg-laying. 
  • No cage covers - hormonal trigger, unsafe to chew on, can cause territorial behaviors


TRAINING

Target Training

  • Congratulations, as a new bird owner you are now also a bird trainer. Training just means “teaching”.Whether you mean to or not, you are also teaching your bird what to do and what no to do just with your behavior. “Every interaction is a training session.”
  • Target training, though simple, is the single most important “trick” you can teach your bird. 


Step Up

  • Birds are expected to step up like dogs are expected to sit, but unlike dogs sitting, a bird stepping up onto a human hand is not a natural behavior. We need to treat it as a trick and respect their refusal to step up rather than force it. Sure, you can force it - but that’s the best way to get a bite. 

PETTING
  • Petting birds is a WHOLE thing. 
  • It is not like petting a dog or a cat - the only appropriate place to pet a bird is on its head. 
  • Innappropriate or excessive petting can lead to hormonal behaviors. This happens because petting your bird all over its body or even petting it too much is sexually stimulating to a bird. Hormonal behaviors like humping, regurgitating, and screaming, among many others, almost always lead to aggression. 

CAGE

  • What size cage should you get? 
    • Bigger than you think
    • The bigger, the better
    • Birds should be able to fully extend its wings, turn around and even fly short distances in its cage OR be allowed frequent opportunities to fly outside of its cage in your home. 
  • Material
    • powdered-coated steel or iron is most common but not long-lasting
    • painting with regular paint is not safe
    • galvanized steel is widely available and cheap but has a zinc coating - zinc is extremely toxic to birds
    • aluminum is safe and less expensive than stainless steel, doesn’t need to be painted, but not easy to find
    • stainless steel is the safest, lowest maintenance, longest lasting, but most expensive by far
  • Bar spacing
    • If the space between bars is wide enough that a bird can squeeze its head through, it is a death trap for the bird. Ensure the cage you get has the appropriate bar spacing for the species you are getting. 


VET CARE

  • Birds should receive a yearly wellness exam and bloodwork should be done every 1 - 2 years. 
  • Birds require specialized veterinary care from an experienced avian veterinarian.
  • Birds, being prey animals, hide their illnesses extremely well. In the wild, their lives depend on looking healthy because sick birds get hunted first. 
  • Weighing birds regularly, understanding what a sick bird looks like, and regular checkups with an avian vet help to catch symptoms as early as possible. Even then, we often see symptoms only when the disease has progressed and the bird is critical. 
  • Avian vet care is expensive where it is available.
  • Avian vet care is not widely available. Many people live hours or days from an avian vet and in some countries, there are no avian vets. This makes seeking proper care extremely difficult. If there is no avian vet near you, how will you provide medical care for your bird?


HORMONES

  • Hormonal behaviors (aka breeding behaviors) in birds is largely influenced by environmental factors such as a change in daylight hours, overabundance of food, physical touch, access to nesting materials and ideal nesting location, etc. 
  • Since pet birds are not meant to breed, hormonal behavior should not be encouraged. 
  • Hormonal behaviors are inconvenient but also almost always lead to aggression. 
  • In females, hormones cause unnecessary egg-laying which, when there is no benefit of a baby bird, only comes with risks. Egg-laying can lead to loss of life for some birds. 


FLIGHT

  • Wings are one of the things that classify a bird as a bird. Flying is the one thing only birds can do. Their entire bodies are designed for flight. 
  • While wing clipping is often done with the intention of keeping a bird safe from flying into walls or accidentally getting outdoors, it is rarely actually safe for the bird.
  • Many birds can still fly to some degree despite trimmed flight feathers - they can easily be carried by a wind pretty far and then not possess the ability to return.
  • Wing clipping affects how birds use their bodies, limits their activity level, hurts them psychologically, increases biting, puts them at a disadvantage when faced with a predator (either an indoor dog/cat or an outdoor predator if the accidentally get outside).
  • Wing clipping is also done under the pretext of “taming & training” them while their wings are clipped. The only thing that changes is the bird’s ability to get away. 
  • It causes more biting since they can just fly away from something that makes them uncomfortable.
  • It can damage their relationship with their owner.
  • The unwanted behavior usually comes back when their flight feathers grow back.
  • Some birds never psychologically recover from having their wings clipped.

SAFETY

  • Toxins
    • Birds have a much more advanced respiratory system which means they are much more sensitive to toxins than humans or even other animals. Before bring home a bird, you will need to make changes is many aspects of your household to make it safe for a bird: 
  • Pots & Pans
  • Appliances
  • Cleaning supplies
  • Air fresheners
  • Home repairs
  • Certain foods
  • Certain metals
  • Plants
  • Check out this free Household Dangers download.
  • Pets
  • Despite what you may see on social media, your other pets should not be “friends” with your bird.
  • Dogs, cats and other predators could easily kill your bird, even accidentally
  • Dangers of saliva
  • Some larger species of parrots can also pose a real danger to small pets
  • Flight
  • Precautions need to be taken to prevent your bird from flying into a dangerous situation
  • hot stove
  • open toilet seats
  • open doors
  • sitting, stepping on, closing a door on a bird
  • Clipping the bird’s wings is NOT the answer. You brought the bird into your home so you must adapt to a flying animal. 
  • Bird Sitting
  • You can travel without your bird, but you will need to either 
  • Board them with a vet or sitter that is experienced with birds   
  • OR
  • Hire (and train!) a sitter that will come to your home at least twice a day while you are gone.
  • Check out this free Bird Sitter Handbook.

when everything goes wrong... (because it will)

  • What will you do if…
  • …your bird becomes ill but you can’t afford the bill?
  • …your bird’s annual wellness checkup comes up but you realize its $100 just for the exam and another $400 for bloodwork?
  • …your bird is screaming for hours at a time and nothing you do gets him to stop?
  • …your bird starts biting you for no apparent reason almost every day?
  • …your bird starts pulling out its feathers and you don’t know how to make it stop?
  • …you develop allergies to your bird?
  • …your apartment manager or HOA is telling you either your bird goes or you go?
  • …your bird starts attacking your child or spouse (or mother, father, best friend, grandmother)?


If any of the above scenarios would cause you to consider rehoming your bird, then a bird may not be a good fit for you. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you are not the right fit for a bird.
If after listening to all of this you are thinking “THAT’S A LOT!”, then you have been paying attention. And we agree. Birds are a lot of work, a lot of commitment, a lot of changes, and a lot of money. 

Those of us who have them in our homes despite how much it takes to care for them enjoy unique relationships with these amazing creatures and find them worth all the trouble. 

But not everyone will and that’s okay. You can love and admire birds and still not feel like they would fit into your life. That is as wise a choice as any.

written by

Jen Perez

Animal Care Manager and Trainer at J&W Pets and Customer Care Representative at BirdTricks

Copyright © 2025 Project Parrots - All Rights Reserved.


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