{"id":14610,"date":"2020-03-05T17:51:04","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T23:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windycityparrot.com\/blog\/?p=14610"},"modified":"2020-03-05T17:51:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T23:51:04","slug":"what-kind-of-bird-should-i-get-at-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/?p=14610","title":{"rendered":"What Kind of Bird Should I Get at 60?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Darla S asks:<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you suggest a few medium-sized parrot species for a 1st-time owner about to turn 60y?<\/span><\/p>\n

I am interested in moderation (moderate affection, playfulness, independence, friendliness, and noise) ability to talk would be a plus.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I still work full time, and live alone in my own house.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I am a homebody, have had my own dog pack for the past 33 years, and have been grooming and boarding for the past 17yrs.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I am ready to leave the dog world and settle down with 1 companion parrot.<\/span><\/p>\n

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2 of my current 3 dogs are seniors.<\/span><\/p>\n

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My plan is to get a bird as soon as they pass on.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This will be my first and last bird so I would really like to get it right.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Do Parrots Make Good Pets For Seniors And More Pet Bird Care Answers<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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I have been researching for a year already and still don’t know what bird to get.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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I want to make sure that I get a companion I will enjoy and can keep happy and well cared for as long as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I have found a wealth of info on training, enrichment, diet and correcting behavior issues, but nothing past 2 paragraphs on the personality of most birds. I tried a bird discussion group but didn’t find it a positive experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Of the few pet stores I have visited, the info on bird personality has been contradictory.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I feel the African Grey and Cockatoos are a definite no.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Although I can’t stop thinking about the Galah.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Some of the Ringnecks have caught my eye also.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Most of my exposure to parrot personality has been YouTube.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hi, Darla great question,<\/span><\/p>\n

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The start at the macro level Ist.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A very good source of available birds is your veterinarian.<\/span><\/p>\n

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He or she might not be an avian vet but they network with other veterinarians in the area could possibly provide leads.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Facebook if you are on it has a lot of very engaged bird groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Some are species-specific and some are just general groups for the lover of birds.<\/span><\/p>\n

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On a more granular level, the first rule of thumb is “bigger bird – bigger brain – bigger noise- bigger poop”.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Because of your schedule regardless of the bird, you want a very large cage at the bird that can stretch out move around and while you are at work.<\/span><\/p>\n

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On one hand, you mention a Galah and then express your interest in ringneck.<\/span><\/p>\n

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One of the things to look at is do you want a long tail or short tail bird?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ringnecks a longtail making them much longer than a short tail Galah even though the Galah is a bigger bird.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Scares many people mistakenly believe all macaws are big birds.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We’ve identified 43 species down to the noble macaw which is the size of a sun conure to put things in perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Speaking of conures (which covers about 120 species) if you don’t want a lot of noise don’t get a conure.<\/span><\/p>\n

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All parrots including parakeets have the ability to talk.<\/span><\/p>\n

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That said there’s no guarantee any bird that comes home will be able to speak anything intelligible.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Although I’ve seen many male ringnecks both African and Indian turn out to have somewhat of a vocabulary.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Keto our rescue ringneck speaks about a dozen 15 words and phrases.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Which he repeats two dozen times a day.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We are crazy bird people so we have fun with.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Conversely, we just rescued a beautiful blue Quaker from a woman who had migraines and was about to “put the bird in the freezer” (or worse) if it didn’t shut up.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We were 6 miles away and I was there in 15 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Chili is not really a noisy bird which makes everything relative.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Last but not least if you have any bird rescues in the area start conversations with those folks.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The benefit to a bird rescue as you can see dozens of species all at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Why I Drove 800 Miles To Rescue An African Ringneck<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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It would be best that you get an older bird because of where you are in life and bird rescues are filled with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

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As you get closer let us know how your search is doing and shoot us some videos.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Best<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MitchR<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Darla S asks: Can you suggest a few medium-sized parrot species for a 1st-time owner about to turn 60y? I am interested in moderation (moderate affection, playfulness, independence, friendliness, and noise) ability to talk would be a plus. I still work full time, and live alone in my own house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","_thinkrank_schema_form_data":"","_thinkrank_selected_schema_type":"","_thinkrank_additional_schemas":"","_thinkrank_canonical_url":"","_thinkrank_og_title":"","_thinkrank_og_description":"","_thinkrank_og_image":"","_thinkrank_twitter_title":"","_thinkrank_twitter_description":"","_thinkrank_twitter_image":"","_thinkrank_imported_from":"","_thinkrank_focus_keywords":[],"_thinkrank_focus_keyword":"","_thinkrank_robots_meta_enabled":0,"_thinkrank_robots_meta":"","_thinkrank_advanced_robots_meta":"","_thinkrank_exclude_from_search":0,"_thinkrank_exclude_from_archives":0,"_thinkrank_primary_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"page_builder":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,195,196,188,197,204,229,231,201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-parrot-anaotmy","category-bird-parrot-care","category-bird-behavior","category-bird-cage-info","category-bird-enviornments","category-bird-rescue","category-cockatoo","category-conures","category-feeding-pet-birds"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":{"landsacpe":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/woman-smiling-budgie2-3.jpg?resize=600%2C445&ssl=1",600,445,true],"list":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/woman-smiling-budgie2-3.jpg?resize=463%2C348&ssl=1",463,348,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/woman-smiling-budgie2-3.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1",300,300,true],"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/woman-smiling-budgie2-3.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1",600,600,false]},"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phcfkq-3NE","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/woman-smiling-budgie2-3.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/152532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}