Care?

[FinchLover&Breeder]

Hey guys it's me Nick again. Today I come to you wondering how hard it is to care for a parrot. Can anyone give me any insight?

[CathyCraftz]

Parrots are harder to care for than finches, but it depends on which species you are going to keep. Larger parrots require more interaction or it will lead to feather plucking caused by boredom. They also need lots of toys. If you are going to keep smaller species such as lovebirds, just some fruits and vegetables, parrot seed, water and a source of calcium is fine, and play time too, if the bird is used to your hand and has bonded with you. Larger species of course require special parrot cages as well. Of course all birds need a bath at least once a week. Sometimes parrots also bully pet cats and dogs, so be careful.

[tex]

Seems a big step up from finches and sounds like quite a demanding pet in terms of care and interaction but i have to say i have rather fancied keeping a parrot myself

[Icearstorm]

FinchLover&Breeder

Parrots have needs much above most other pets, and are unsuitable pets for most people due to this. They are intellectually and emotionally complex, requiring mental stimulation and interaction every day. I highly recommend that you watch "The Parrot Confidential" to get a better idea about parrots and the pet trade.

If you do want a parrot, consider apprenticing under an experienced parrot owner to learn proper care, kind of like what falconers do.

I like how several Redditors have put it: "parrots are like perpetual toddlers with a can opener on their face." They will never grow up and help contribute to you or society like a toddler might. They can be quite moody, and any sort of tantrum has a probability of injuring you due to their powerful beak. They are also quite loud, and tend to have loud squawks or piercing screeches that can sometimes be heard from outside.


If you are thinking about larger parrot species, be certain you can take care of them for your entire life, as many live half a century or more with proper care. A long life may sound good for a pet, but goals and circumstances change over one's life.

What if you want to be in a relationship with someone? Parrots can be very jealous, and may even injure the person you care about. This might not be an issue for friends, but a partner will probably be around more, and thus be less able to simply avoid your parrot. Even if you don't want a relationship, there are still many problems that owning a parrot could contribute to.

What about when you get a job? Unless you work from home, your parrot will be left alone for several hours per day, putting it at risk of boredom and depression. If you have an aviary with a pair of parrots to keep each other company, these former problems could be reduced, but several still remain.

What if you want to move? Will your neighbors be okay with hearing your parrot squawking each morning (and probably several other times throughout the day)?

And maybe the question that most people don't want to think about, what happens when you get old? The average life expectancy is around 80 years for a male in the United States, so getting a parrot at your age could mean that you could both be elderly at the same time. Will you be able to take care of your parrot's health problems when you too are experiencing issues? What happens if you are hospitalized? Who will take care of your parrot then? What happens if you die before your parrot? Hopefully you will have written a will describing what to do with the parrot, although this isn't a guarantee that your parrot's future owner will be just as good.


Please, don't get a parrot until you are absolutely sure you will properly care for it.

[FinchLover&Breeder]

Icearstorm
Thank you. That information is very useful. I was just curious and have no plans on getting anything more than a parrakeete any time soon. My main concern is that I need to get money flowing because I am probably getting a bearded dragon soon. And those can cost a lot in just a month depending on where you get your food from. I know you probably know nothing about that but if anyone has any questions on bearded dragons I can try to answer them the best that I can.

[Icearstorm]

FinchLover&Breeder

All right, that's good. I don't have experience with bearded dragons (or any omnivorous reptiles, in that case); however, I have kept several reptiles over the years. I'm most experienced with green anoles and broad-headed skinks.


Do you have room for a ten-gallon tank, as well as the one for your bearded dragon? If so you can buy crickets in bulk and keep them in the small terrarium until your bearded dragon needs to eat them. I bought 500 small or medium ones for under $20, and they lasted for quite a while.
Just fill the bottom of the small tank with sand and place some paper towel rolls around, and then dump in the crickets. You can feed them table scraps like lettuce and carrots for hydration and ground unsweetened cereal and oats for nutrition. I find that they actually don't stink too badly on this diet, provided that you sift the dead crickets and old food out every few days. Still, don't keep them in your closet, or your clothes will start to smell like crickets. I made that mistake several years ago, and I swear I still occasionally catch the scent of cricket in there...
IMPORTANT: do NOT feed crickets calcium-fortified food until gut-loading 1-2 days before feeding. All of my crickets were dying, so I asked a cricket vendor at a reptile expo why, and he said that the calcium-fortified food made the crickets' exoskeletons too hard, so most of them couldn't moult and therefore died. I stopped feeding them the calcium food after this, and they stopped dying. Calcium also seems to smell a bit weird.

Breeding crickets is a little more difficult, but has the potential of making it so you never need to buy feeder insects again. I succeeded at breeding them using the method below; however, the pinheads died due to a humidity and fly problem. I think I've come up with an idea to stop that from happening again.
Fill a shallow container around the size of your hand with half an inch to an inch of sterile dirt. Spray water on it until it is somewhat damp, and place it in the cricket tank, making sure the crickets can get in and out of it. You will have to keep the dirt in the container damp, or eggs will dry out. To increase the number of eggs laid, only feed your bearded dragon the male crickets, making sure to leave 2-3 adult males. If you run out of extra males, then feed juvenile females. Females have an ovipositor (looks like a black tube in between the fork of their tail), while males do not.
Once eggs are in the dirt, place the container in a plastic container about the size of a shoebox, and put the lid on. Open the container every day and make sure the dirt stays damp. Once the crickets hatch, you can start putting their food in and replacing it if it gets moldy. Once the crickets are 3/8" long or so, you can move them to the regular cricket tank.
It would probably be a good idea to make a lid with a very fine mesh so air can circulate without tiny flies getting in. If you keep this container indoors, flies shouldn't be much of an issue.

I hear mealworms are easier to breed and take care of than crickets, although they are quite a bit fattier. They might be fine for a bearded dragon, though, considering an adult beardie would also be eating quite a few plants without much fat.


And if you ever want to make a bioactive terrarium with a custom background, I'd recommend looking at SerpaDesign's videos in the Vivarium Builds and DIY Backgrounds playlists. Most of them are for tropical species, but use a different substrate and plants and the idea's pretty similar.