Cockatiel bird have been kept and breed successfully in many countries all around
world. Cockatiel bird can be considered as
most widely kept parrot other than parakeet or budgie (budgerigar). Lots of research or expert of cockatiel emerge and many keeper have lots and lots of knowledge of cockatiel bird and their care.I prepared this topic especially for newcomer birds enthusiast who still unable to make
decision about what species of parrot that they would like to buy. Well, there are lots and lots of parrot out there in
market. Some is very good for petting but some may not. However, for many people who haven’t own any pet parrot or any pet birds, many will feel that parrot will be
same, with good personality, very friendly, good talker, a cuddle creature and a good friend when we are lonely. However, in fact it is not. Some parrot may be very nippy (bite) and rude, some parrot will tend to attached to only one person (and rude to other people), some parrot may not talk at all, while some other species may not give permission to anyone to cuddle them.
Okay, now we may go
some of
reason why in my opinion, cockatiel is one of
best pet bird for
beginner. Having said this, I didn’t mean that beginner should only keep cockatiel or cockatiel is
only choices –
pet bird enthusiast actually have other option, lots of them but that is only if they are willing to learn more about
species that they choose or interested in.
Price Price can become major obstacle for
pet bird or pet parrot enthusiast to own their dream bird. Since price of a parrot can range from few buck up until ten of thousand dollar, price is sometime a critical in deciding which parrot that
new comer should choose.
In Malaysia and I believed it happen to many other countries all around
world, price of a cockatiel is not expensive. Price may be different based on
colour mutation of
cockatiel and whether
cockatiel is handfed or parent fed. Normally parent fed cockatiel is cheaper than handfed coaktiel. This is because for handfed cockatiel,
breeder have to spent more time, effort and cost to feed
baby, while for parent fed cockatiel,
breeder didn’t have to put extra effort to
bird and definitely they will have lower cost.
If we compared price of a pet cockatiel ( a good, healthy handfed baby cockatiel which can make good pet) with other species with similar quality (healthy and handfed baby birds) of
bigger parrot ,
price is totally different. For
beginner, I think
price of a pet cockatiel is reasonable (even it is not
cheapest).
Noise level Personally I think all parrot will make some noise. Some of them will have rough squak while some other may have melodies whistling. However, for
normal rule
bigger
parrot it is more likely that they able (able but not necessary they will do) to make higher level of noice. I highlight this topic up because I understand that not everyone have
priviledge to own a very big house (and area) which will able to prevent
noice from their parrot to disturb their neigbhour.
In many occasion, new comer in pet bird or pet parrot keeping fall in love with their dreamed parrot in
first sight or from their reading. They may heard or read about
parrot ability from books or from internet or they may have some friend who have this species of parrot and
parrot able to ‘speak’ (mimic) or perform some trick. However, many fail to realise that different people will have different level of tolerance towards noice level. For some people, they are okay with
noise that their parrot have (in
morning, afternoon and evening and sometimes all day until middle of
night). We also should consider this with
people live around us a.k.a our neigbhour.
Cockatiel will create some noise or whistling sound every now and them especially in
morning and late afternoon. However, if only one individual cockatiel
noise level that they able to create is not much and still at minimal level compared to other parrot. Cockatiel didn’t have high pitch sound like lovebirds. They also normally not always ‘sing’ like budgie do. Generally one can keep cockatiel in all type of house – whether it is an apartment, a single house, a link house (terrace house) or a banglow.