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Should You Get a Parrot for a Pet?
Good Reasons:
- Parrots are beautiful, intelligent, and affectionate. To read about one particularly brainy parrot, click on this link: African-Gray-Parrot
- They’re legal: Those for sale in pet stores are most likely raised in captivity by parrot breeders. So it’s not against the law to buy or own one.
Bad Reasons:
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Expensive. A parrot may cost $1,000 to buy, with another $500 or so for a cage. Vet bills, food, and toys could come to $1,000 per year.
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Don’t do well alone. A parrot needs to hang out with other parrots to be happy. So you should really always buy two, not one, bird. But that may mean double trouble.
- Demanding and noisy. Pet parrots demand lots of attention and often scream very loudly to get it. (Without enough attention, a parrot can get depressed and sick.)
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Messy. A parrot drops food all over the place and poops anywhere it happens to be. Be prepared to spend time each day cleaning up after your pet and time each week scrubbing down its cage.
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Long-lived. Parrots often live 50 or more years old—way longer than most people want to keep them.
Ranger Rick says that, all in all, it’s better not to get a parrot.
To find out more about parrots, go to The World Parrot Trust’s Web page at www.parrots.org/kids.