Birds Anyone?

[Tiramisu]

Originally Posted by Janet

Can't help you with the birds Sandy. I've been afraid of them since I was in the crib. I do have feeders up for Hummingbirds and I did have some up for the yellow/gold Finches. Long as they can't get too close to me...I do alright.

What's the story?

[Tiramisu]

I'm sure Hubby will be against the idea and it's probably not a good idea with the kids and doggies around.

[judy]

Don't ask him! It's much easier to say you're sorry than to ask for permission.

All kidding aside, I hope you find a wonderful bird. I don't know about cockatiels.
Google it and see what people have to say. I think they're very popular.

I still want to get more parakeets or canaries. Not yet though. Annie is too young and needs much more spoiling.

[Janet]

Originally Posted by Tiramisu

What's the story?

When I was a toddler, I saw them cut the heads off chickens and they chased me. We only had a two bedroom home and Mom and Dad had one room, us 3 kids (younger brother hadn't been born yet) had the other. I slept in my crib and had a dream there were chickens all over it pecking at me. My mother remembers this night too. Everysince, I've been afraid of birds.

I've tried to get over it, but it hasn't happened.

[Emmsmom]

We have a male and female cockatiel. Elvis(the male) can get rather vocal at times but how annoying it can be depends on what you teach him to sing. LOL Last fall Elvis use to listen to a bird outside while we had the windows open. Well it took him all of 2 weeks to learn the song and now he won't stop. It is kinda of annoying at times because he sounds just like a siren. He will also make the "cat call" whistle too.

Memphis(the female) is very quiet. Females don't normally sing they just kinda chirp. Now when she hears my husband come home she will start screaming until he comes in and says hi. THen she will calm down.

The bad side to owning them is the mess they can make. They do produce a lot of dust from cleaning themselves so much. You also CAN NOT let them near ANYTHING shiny and delicate because they are very curious and they will pick at it. Their wings and toenails need to be clipped on regular basis. We use to have a male parakeet and we had to find him a new home. He was driving me crazy. He didn't sing he just screamed ALL the time. If you plan on getting 2 birds you need to try and get 2 siblings or a male and female that have already bonded. It is much easier that way. We didn't go this route and it took a while for Elvis and Memphis to get use to each other. We had to keep them seperated a lot. Now they clean each other but they still haven't bonded. So NO babies for us! A male a female will only mate if the bond so I am just fine with not having any babies. We just wanted a male that would sing. We are still trying to teach him other songs it just takes a while.