| What kind of birds do you have? and how many? I imagine it's an expensive undertaking, like having any pet huh? |
Yes sir, yes sir, a whole house full. (Twistin' the nursery rhyme a bit... with apologies on the gender bending too.)
One ring neck type female parrot/parrotkeet (we keep getting told it's a member of the parrotkeet family by the local pet shop we go to for wing and nail clippings for our pets). Alexandrine Parrot is the proper type. Image of similar bird here (not of my actual pet). Females are a little more plain, males get a beautiful band of color around the nape of the collar.
One green cheek conure. Again sample image follows.
Two cockatiels at home, one with my son while he stays with my in-laws most nites.
And a couple of small 'keets we adopted because someone was searching for a home for them.
We bought the 'tiels about 10 years ago, or at least the oldest of the 'tiels at that time. The lighter color shown in sample image above. Added the grey later to go with a pair of the lighter color birds. One of those original birds had brain/nerve damage and wasn't expected to live that long. The breeder we got it from expected he'd need a lot of love and care and it got it in our home. It lived for about 8 years before succumbing to some sort of problem. There was some suspicion that the grey bird may have fought it because the grey one was picked on by the original pair, but we got another bird to put with the 3 of them and even with a fourth bird, the original pair never were friendly to the others and eventually the first 3 picked on the fourth. The fourth escaped one day when it's wings had grown back enough and my daughter had opened the cage to feed them just as I opened the back door to our home. That bird flew out the door as quick as it saw bright light.
The nerve/brain damaged member of the original pair lasted another year or so after we lost the escapee, but not much more than that. Since that bird is gone, the 3rd 'tiel has paired with the remaining member of the first pair. They have their own spacious cage and get along well.
The 'keets live in their own cage, with the green cheek up on the same level they are. The green cheek talks to the female 'keet (we believe the green cheek is a male) frequently. (See comments above). Those two are a fun pair to watch even though they aren't a pair and aren't in the same cage.
The male 'keet seems not to care a whit about the green cheek or any of the birds in the house, but he does like to chirp and tweet a lot.
"Big bird" (not her name, but the biggest in the bunch, the ring neck) can be noisy as noted above, but she's normally pretty quiet for us as long as she gets the attention she seeks.
The green cheek is perhaps the noisiest in the bunch as he has some very loud and irritating squawks that he lets out, along with some very piercing screams.
And finally the 'tiels -- not normally too noisy, but can make some piercing screeches in the a.m. when they want food or attention. Otherwise they stay fairly quiet as the others seem to do the talking for the lot.
