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What type of life style do you lead? - stressed and hectic or easygoing and laid-back |
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- Do you have a lot of company or visitors? |
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- Is the phone constantly ringing? |
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- How many people live in the house - what are their ages, behaviors, attitudes |
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- What is your work schedule like? - how often and for how long will the bird be left alone |
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What type of life will your bird have? |
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- Will he be spending 40 or more hours each week responsible for his own entertainment? |
- Will he be seeing new people and things? - some breeds are known to be nervous in new or different situations. |
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- Is your bird's greatest task to look pretty and sing or is your bird something to show off to others? |
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Are you financially and emotionally able to keep a bird? |
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- There are diseases that are common to birds that can only be detected with blood testing - a full panel of blood tests runs about $300. |
- Bird food is more expensive than most cat or dog foods and even pet stores do not have a lot of variety to choose from. - if your bird is not eating the right foods you are more likely to need blood tests to figure out what is lacking in their diet. |
- If you are taking home a parrot or similar size bird, you will probably spend in the neighborhood of $1000 on necessities before the bird comes home. |
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Are you financially and emotionally able to keep a bird? |
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- You cannot ignore your bird, because you don't feel like spending time with it. |
- Some birds react to stressors by screaming for no apparent reason, some pluck their own feathers out, some cower in a corner, some bite every time they have the opportunity... - will you be able to deal with behaviors like these or will you just throw the bird away? |
- Even birds who have been 'clipped' are able to fly away. Would you react with anger, would you take it personally and fall into a deep depression; or would you realize that your bird did what was natural to birds when it flew away? |
