I had my first pets around 8 or 9 years old, and I was a horrible pet owner. I hated having to feed and water my pet rabbits and clean their cages everyday. I would forget at times. I just wasn’t responsible enough, and I wish my mother had not allowed me to have pets.
When I was in high school and more responsible, I was way too busy to take care of pets. I had a part-time job and was in the marching band. Then I moved away to college where pets weren’t allowed.
Pin Interest
At no point during my youth, would I have been a good candidate for owning a pet bird; however, I would have been good at helping take care of a family pet bird, which would have been the ultimate responsibility of my parents.
Now, some kids are great with pet birds; however, it takes the right mixture of pet bird and child. Because parrots and birds are prey animals, quick movements, loud noises and grabbing hands are all seen as threatening to them.
A parrot might respond to this by biting or trying to fly away, so a child that has lots of energy and not much self control over his or her movements or desires would not make a great pet bird owner. This is why we often recommend that generally, the child be 12 years old before getting their own pet bird.
There are, of course, some mature children, who are exceptions to this rule. To help parents judge if their child makes a good pet bird owning candidate, consider this:
You should not get a pet bird for your child, if:
1) Your child is under the age of 12 and will be the bird’s sole care taker. Some children don’t understand the consequences of their actions, especially if they forget to give the pet bird food or water. Animal cruelty should not be practiced so that a child can learn responsibility the hard way.
2) Your child has no money to take the pet bird to an avian veterinarian if it gets sick. Parents who don’t allow pet birds that are sick to be taken to the vet because they don’t want to spend the money teach the child a number of bad lessons. If the parent or child is unable or unwilling to take to the pet bird to a vet, then don’t get the pet bird.
3) If the child is too busy with extracurricular activities to spend at least one to two hours hanging out with the pet bird.
4) If the child is not willing to check out websites or read magazines and books about a pet bird before adopting one.
5) If the child has trouble controlling his or her emotions. Prey animals do not respond well to physical outbursts and will fly or bite.
If your child has the time, patience and maturity level for a pet bird, there are nine species suggestions below. They were picked because of the low noise level, availability and cost, ease of care (comparatively speaking to the larger parrots), size, less challenging mental and emotional needs, and life expectancy (all shorter than 30 years). T
here are many great stories of responsible children keeping some of the bigger parrots, however, those parrots life expectancies are longer, so the child will have to keep the bird through the life changes that young adults go through.
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