Fraser Andrew - Bird Species Choice

DizzyBlue

DizzyBlue

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Hey , myself and my family were looking for a hand reared irn to join the family , however i keep hearing conflicting messages about them , ive had birds before so i know there are challenges. After some thought we decided a cockatiel would be a better option , but before we make a final decision i thought who better to ask than ring neck owners . Regards Fraser

My reply:
Good morning @fraser andrew better off introducing yourself in the New Members Introductions folder :) for ringneck information I will tag @Wera great amount of knowledge there
 
Hi and welcome, Indian ringnecks can be loud, I know cockatiels also can be loud but as owner of two IRN I find their flock call horrible, maybe listen to it on YouTube and have a think can you imagine parrot zooming around the house and flock calling for 30 minutes constantly and you can’t do much about that because it’s kind of their natural behaviour, as my vet described ringnecks they are often high strung and it can result in problems down the way, also something to think about is that they can be independent and not necessarily keen on being handled, one of my girls is very easy to handle and in general she is easygoing, she is very social and friendly but only towards us, she doesn’t like strangers at all and takes time to get used to them, breeding season usually gets her bit crazy, still it can be managed, our other girl didn’t have best start because she arrived at ours when she was around 3 years old and we were her 4th house so she took time to adjust, she is very independent and likes to play by herself, so she has a lot of perching stations throughout the house, it works very well for her and for us because mostly she stays out of trouble ( chewing on things she shouldn’t chew) she is also very energetic also thanks to her I understand what my vet meant when he said that ringneck can bond strongly to one person, Bluey came to us with issue of not liking male humans and indeed she didn’t like my boyfriend, it wasn’t a problem because I am home more and I care for parrots most of the time, my boyfriend was aware of issue and tried to put a lot of effort into her at least tolerating him, it worked so well that last year ( so nearly after 3 years of her being in our house) she decided he is her human, my boyfriend can give her head scratches, he can touch her beak and I honestly don’t remember when was last time she bite him properly, what is most amazing he can easily put his hand inside her cage and give her scratches or clean around when she is in, when it comes to me I can forget about it, I can try but most likely I will get bitten, she is still very good with me but it’s also clear that he is her favourite, in a way it’s very sweet and makes my life easier because he used to struggle with her when I was not around but now they don’t have any problems
 
Also something to consider is that often when hormonal parrots can be aggressive and also even when not hormonal they can react in weird ways to things we would not even think about, I often take care of my friend’s flock when she goes on holidays, she has 5 parrots and two of them are yellow headed Amazon parrots males… they make me appreciate size of my parrots because even if Blu or Bluey get angry, decide to dive bomb and bite still they ain’t that terrifying as my friend’s Amazon boys
 
IRN have very sweet voices and some can be good talkers also they are good with mimicking different noises, out of my girls Blu whistles and Bluey can talk but she mostly only says peekaboo, baby, be back ( when i leave house I usually say to them I will be back )be nice ( something we used to say to her a lot and of course instead of learning other phrases she picked up this, which is hilarious because it happened that she would bite or lunge at one of us and immediately after told us be nice ) Bluey also unfortunately learnt at some point to imitate magpie screeching and conure screaming so on top of irritating flock call there is this, I will never forget when we had her home first few days and my boyfriend said something like so we have a second parrot who doesn’t step up, doesn’t like men, screams like magpie and can also do conure screaming and only thing I could say was yes exactly but you knew and said it’s ok because she is pretty
 
fraser andrew said:
Thats been a great help thank you very much @Wera and @DizzyBlue , even though it would be such great fun to have a parrot able to talk I think we'll go for a cockatiel after all , we know about a great breeder called k&s pet supplies in kircaldy they have great reviews . Thanks again
Regards
Fraser
Click to expand...
I've never owned a Ringneck, but I have two Cockatiels. I don't want to sound pushy, but please consider getting a second Cockatiel eventually. They can preen each other and keep each other company when you and your family are busy sometimes. Also, when our Cockatiels were younger, Pepper began to slowly trust us first - eating food from our hands, stepping onto our hands, etc. and then Kona would follow his example.

One final note: I don't know if you've heard this before (you said you have experience with other birds), but Cockatiels have a reputation for being timid and slow to trust. Go at their pace and do not give up! It took several months for Kona and Pepper to sit and climb on us. Now we have trouble leaving the bird room sometimes, because they won't get off of us!
 
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