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Why
Cockatiel Is The Best Pet Bird for The Beginner
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by:
Tanin Eh Boon
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By Tanin Eh Boon from www.pet-cockatiel.com
Cockatiel bird have been kept and breed successfully in many countries
all around the world. Cockatiel bird can be considered as the most
widely kept parrot other than parakeet or budgie (budgerigar). Lots of
research or expert of cockatiel emerge and many keeper have lots and
lots of knowledge of cockatiel bird and their care.
I prepared this topic especially for newcomer birds enthusiast who
still unable to make the decision about what species of parrot that
they would like to buy. Well, there are lots and lots of parrot out
there in the market. Some is very good for petting but some may not.
However, for many people who haven’t own any pet parrot or any pet
birds, many will feel that parrot will be the same, with good
personality, very friendly, good talker, a cuddle creature and a good
friend when we are lonely. However, in fact it is not. Some parrot may
be very nippy (bite) and rude, some parrot will tend to attached to
only one person (and rude to other people), some parrot may not talk at
all, while some other species may not give permission to anyone to
cuddle them.
Okay, now we may go the some of the reason why in my opinion, cockatiel
is one of the best pet bird for the beginner. Having said this, I
didn’t mean that beginner should only keep cockatiel or cockatiel is
the only choices – the pet bird enthusiast actually have other option,
lots of them but that is only if they are willing to learn more about
the species that they choose or interested in.
Price
Price can become major obstacle for the pet bird or pet parrot
enthusiast to own their dream bird. Since price of a parrot can range
from few buck up until ten of thousand dollar, price is sometime a
critical in deciding which parrot that the new comer should choose.
In Malaysia and I believed it happen to many other countries all around
the world, price of a cockatiel is not expensive. Price may be
different based on the colour mutation of the cockatiel and whether the
cockatiel is handfed or parent fed. Normally parent fed cockatiel is
cheaper than handfed cockatiel. This is because for handfed cockatiel,
the breeder have to spent more time, effort and cost to feed the baby,
while for parent fed cockatiel, the breeder didn’t have to put extra
effort to the bird and definitely they will have lower cost.
If we compared price of a pet cockatiel ( a good, healthy handfed baby
cockatiel which can make good pet) with other species with similar
quality (healthy and handfed baby birds) of the bigger parrot , the
price is totally different. For the beginner, I think the price of a
pet cockatiel is reasonable (even it is not the cheapest).
Noise level
Personally I think all parrot will make some noise. Some of them will
have rough squak while some other may have melodies whistling. However,
for the normal rule the bigger the parrot it is more likely that they
able (able but not necessary they will do) to make higher level of
noice. I highlight this topic up because I understand that not everyone
have the priviledge to own a very big house (and area) which will able
to prevent the noice from their parrot to disturb their neigbhour.
In many occasion, new comer in pet bird or pet parrot keeping fall in
love with their dreamed parrot in the first sight or from their
reading. They may heard or read about the parrot ability from books or
from internet or they may have some friend who have this species of
parrot and the parrot able to ‘speak’ (mimic) or perform some trick.
However, many fail to realise that different people will have different
level of tolerance towards noice level. For some people, they are okay
with the noise that their parrot have (in the morning, afternoon and
evening and sometimes all day until middle of the night). We also
should consider this with the people live around us a.k.a our neigbhour.
Cockatiel will create some noise or whistling sound every now and then
especially in the morning and late afternoon. However, if only one
individual cockatiel is kept, the noise level that they able to create
is not much and still at minimal level compared to other bigger parrot.
Cockatiel also didn’t have high pitch sound like lovebirds. They also
normally not always ‘sing’ like budgie do. Generally one can keep
cockatiel in all type of house – whether it is an apartment, a single
house, a link house (terrace house) or a bungalow.
Talking abilities
Generally many parrot will able to mimic. This is not happen to every
individual birds but lots of them do. The main different among one
species and other is clearity of their voice. Normally big parrot will
be easier to train to talk and will have clearer voice. Among the best
talker known at this time is African Grey Parrot, Eclectus parrot and
Amazon parrot. Cockatoos and macaw family also talk but they are not
rank in the top talker bird.
In small parrot category, cockatiel is one of the parrot that have the
ability to talk (mimic). Many will learn how to say ‘hello’ and some
other phrase which will depend on the training given by the owner.
Based on my reading, the species of parrot that hold the records of
most vocabulary ( english word) is budgies! strange right ? I believed
that many people will think it should be from big parrot family.
I have raised many baby cockatiel and most of them have gone to other
good house. There are one individual who currently own by one of my
friend which able to mimic ‘hello’. This particular cockatiel name
‘Cupid’, and is less than a year when he mimic that word. If the
cockatiel is a handfed baby, they are friendly and more trainable. They
are more likely to mimic if the owner spend proper time with them
everyday.
Good personality
Human have kept parrot since long time. However, in early stage most of
the parrot is from wild caught. Only few that is captive breed. Later,
aviculturist is growing and more parrot are produce in captivity. I
believed now some of the species that we keep today is totally from
captive breed stock and not from wild cought anymore. However, most of
the parrot is still exotic and their personality is either still
similar to their cousin in the wild or they are still not domesticated.
I believed that there are many parrot out there in the market that
didn’t have good personality or friendly behaviour.
As far as my experience with my cockatiel, which I believed is more
than 100 individual bird (many of them have been sent to good home), I
think cockatiel have good, calm and friendly personality. Cockatiel
rarely bullies other birds even from smaller species. (provided that
they are house in good home and good environment). They normally not
charge to people to bite.
Cockatiel also not very moody whereby if the cockatiel is tame, it will
be tame. I mean it will not act like a ‘good boy’ in front of you and
bite you if you didn’t look at them! Yes, some parrot do this… when you
look at them they may stay still but once you didn’t look they come and
bite you and they bite hard! Having said this, if the cockatiel is not
tame, they will still bite us if we try to catch him.
Cockatiel rarely have mean personality. Most of the cockatiel is
friendly, (but some individual is more friendly than other). Handfed
cockatiel will still become a tame pet birds even after few year we put
them in breeding stock. However, it must be given some time to be used
to us again.
Small and compact in size.
Many people likely to be attracted to large bird or parrot. Obvoiusly
because they are big and look so elegance. But while these species of
parrot look very elegance, they also need lot of space to live happily.
For some species of parrot, ten of feets of avairy is their minimum
requirement for them to able to perform a healthy lifesyle. Therefore,
in many cases many people will prefer to keep smaller species which
similair behaviour or pet quality.
Cockatiel didn’t need a very big cage to live happily. A cage of about
3 feet is somehow can make the birds flip their wings and stay healthy.
Their cage also didn’t have to be very strong as they are not so
destructive. When they are outside their cage, they are also didn’t
create any damage to the furniture.
To conclude, there are lots of pets parrot in the market. However, for
the beginner I still recommend smaller species of parrot or birds. In
these smaller species, definitely cockatiel bird is one of the best
option that they should consider.
About the author:
Tanin is a Malaysian birds breeder which kept pet birds since year
1983. His provide lots of information about keeping pet birds
especially cockatiel. Find more information on choosing, buying and
keeping pet cockatiel at www.pet-cockatiel.com
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