Hello everyone 
I am new to the parrot world and a soon-to-be mum of a baby parrot; so excited about that! I'm happy I found this forum and I have been reading it for a few weeks now.
A little about me and my family: I am married and both myself and my hubby are huge, huge animal lovers. We currently have 2 adult cats and 2 adult small dogs and we have been considering adding a feathered companion to our family for a long time now. We don't have any children at the moment but we might have them in the future.
We both currently work from home so we're at home basically non-stop. However, this might change in the future but even if it does, at least one of us (most likely me) will be home from work in the afternoon which will give us plenty of time to spend with our new bird and the rest of our pets. Also, in future years my mum might move in with us and since she'll be retired there will always be someone with the bird and the fur kids.
Also, we live in a spacious 2-storey house, in the suburbs.
A little about our current pets: our cats and dogs get along well, they mostly ignore each other; the cats prefer to play and chase each other and the dogs prefer to play with and chase each other as well. We have never had any problems with them getting along. We have pet gates throughout the house to restrict the dogs' access and allow the cats to escape the dogs if the dogs ever wish to chase them; we also have high cat furniture to allow the cats to escape the dogs and "own" the house from their heights. We consider our pets our babies and we love them dearly.
We've been considering a new pet for a very long time now and we have been researching different species of parrots. Neither one of us has ever owned a parrot before so we're also somewhat nervous about the whole thing.
After a lot of research, we decided to get a hand-raised and hand-fed baby male Quaker. He will be the only bird in our home and he will continue to remain the only bird for at least several years until we learn as much as possible about parrots. If the whole experience is pleasant for both us and the bird for several years, puberty and breeding seasons included, then and only then we might get another parrot.
We have already found a breeder who hand-raises and hand-feeds baby Quakers, we put a deposit down for one of the babies and we handled the babies for a few minutes at different ages; we have also handled a 1-year-old male Quaker who was a sweetheart; it was hard not to take him home instead! We have also found an avian vet and have the names and addresses of at least two other avian vets, just in case we won't like the first one we see. We have already done about 90% of the preparations for the new arrival. Our baby Quaker will be very spoilt: he already has tons of toys that will be swapped around frequently, many perches and swings and so many other things that it's hard to remember them all, lol; he also has 3 big cages and 2 big play gyms. We've read that Quakers can get cage-possessive and aggressive which is why we didn't hesitate in buying several for our little one; and since our house is on two levels, it would be difficult moving a big cage around, up and down the stairs, on a daily basis. So, downstairs we have a big cage for him and a big play gym; upstairs we have another big cage, another big play gym and a smaller cage that will be his sleep/night cage. They will be used depending on where we are in the house and what we're doing. We would like to have him out and about all the time we're home, except when we sleep; we'll see how we go about that.
We're scheduled to bring our new baby home in a week, on Saturday the 21st.
Since we're completely new to the parrot world, we'll need all the help we can get and we'll have many, many questions. I'm really happy to have found this forum and I'll now be heading in the "Questions and Answers" section.
I'm looking forward to meeting you all, humans and feathered babies alike!
I am new to the parrot world and a soon-to-be mum of a baby parrot; so excited about that! I'm happy I found this forum and I have been reading it for a few weeks now.
A little about me and my family: I am married and both myself and my hubby are huge, huge animal lovers. We currently have 2 adult cats and 2 adult small dogs and we have been considering adding a feathered companion to our family for a long time now. We don't have any children at the moment but we might have them in the future.
We both currently work from home so we're at home basically non-stop. However, this might change in the future but even if it does, at least one of us (most likely me) will be home from work in the afternoon which will give us plenty of time to spend with our new bird and the rest of our pets. Also, in future years my mum might move in with us and since she'll be retired there will always be someone with the bird and the fur kids.
Also, we live in a spacious 2-storey house, in the suburbs.
A little about our current pets: our cats and dogs get along well, they mostly ignore each other; the cats prefer to play and chase each other and the dogs prefer to play with and chase each other as well. We have never had any problems with them getting along. We have pet gates throughout the house to restrict the dogs' access and allow the cats to escape the dogs if the dogs ever wish to chase them; we also have high cat furniture to allow the cats to escape the dogs and "own" the house from their heights. We consider our pets our babies and we love them dearly.
We've been considering a new pet for a very long time now and we have been researching different species of parrots. Neither one of us has ever owned a parrot before so we're also somewhat nervous about the whole thing.
After a lot of research, we decided to get a hand-raised and hand-fed baby male Quaker. He will be the only bird in our home and he will continue to remain the only bird for at least several years until we learn as much as possible about parrots. If the whole experience is pleasant for both us and the bird for several years, puberty and breeding seasons included, then and only then we might get another parrot.
We have already found a breeder who hand-raises and hand-feeds baby Quakers, we put a deposit down for one of the babies and we handled the babies for a few minutes at different ages; we have also handled a 1-year-old male Quaker who was a sweetheart; it was hard not to take him home instead! We have also found an avian vet and have the names and addresses of at least two other avian vets, just in case we won't like the first one we see. We have already done about 90% of the preparations for the new arrival. Our baby Quaker will be very spoilt: he already has tons of toys that will be swapped around frequently, many perches and swings and so many other things that it's hard to remember them all, lol; he also has 3 big cages and 2 big play gyms. We've read that Quakers can get cage-possessive and aggressive which is why we didn't hesitate in buying several for our little one; and since our house is on two levels, it would be difficult moving a big cage around, up and down the stairs, on a daily basis. So, downstairs we have a big cage for him and a big play gym; upstairs we have another big cage, another big play gym and a smaller cage that will be his sleep/night cage. They will be used depending on where we are in the house and what we're doing. We would like to have him out and about all the time we're home, except when we sleep; we'll see how we go about that.
We're scheduled to bring our new baby home in a week, on Saturday the 21st.
Since we're completely new to the parrot world, we'll need all the help we can get and we'll have many, many questions. I'm really happy to have found this forum and I'll now be heading in the "Questions and Answers" section.
I'm looking forward to meeting you all, humans and feathered babies alike!
