Vincent_V48
Member
Hello & Thank you for reading through my post, any advice is greatly appreciated!
06 Sept. 2026 EDIT: I might reconsider adding a CAG/TAG to the list of possibility, rather than writing them off entirely due to so many people voicing their love for their CAG. I had previously believed they required way more then I thought, and it was simply a question of understanding their needs. You won me over!We will also not have a bird room, instead, we are getting the cat his own playroom upstairs and the bird will be with us for 90% of the day except sleeping time. We can give a minimum 4-5 hours quality/outside cage time per day.
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We're a couple from Norway who are looking to own birds again in the near future. We've both had cockatiels, budgies & button quails for 5-10 years before we got together, and now we're looking for our next adventure! We work from home and make our own hours, which means we will be home 24/7!
However our living situation need some attending to, some major changes are needed in order to make this work. I will try to make a detailed & comprehensive list (cause I really like making those) to inform everyone reading as much as possible so I can get more clear answers about what would fit us! Thank you for reading the incoming paragraphs!
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WHY A PARROT?
My first ever pet was a true albino budgie who sadly died on my 14th birthday. I've had around 10~throughout 15 years, oldest pair lived to be 8 and 10. I didn't know much at all back then about keeping birds and how much they really needed. Many of the early ones passed away when I was a child due to incorrect care, which I still have bad dreams about to this day. I started letting the ones I had out of the cage as soon as I got home from school in my first apartment, that's when I really got to observe happy birds. They were a joy to have around me chirpin', playing and pooping (One even landed on my cheeseburger..) I had to rehome my last 2 when I moved back home to a new place, and didn't get birds again since. Lately, my boyfriend (who had cockatiels) threw around the idea of keeping birds again, which I stuck to REAL hard. That was barely a month ago, and I've been doing hours of research per day since then. I went from Amazons, to Cockatiels, to Meyer's, and then up to Amazon and then back to Quakers. I remember really wanting a cockatoo in my younger age (I am 34 now) but I know for sure that is not the bird for me in this lifetime. I got serious bird fever right now, and I have a lot of ideas with medium to high expectations about owning a smaller-to-medium sized parrot. This will not happen for at least 2 years if anything, so I will eventually calm down and really find out of my drive to committ the rest of my life to 1 bird is something I truly want. I like the size of Meyer's/Amazons for example, but learning to handle them is something entirely different. Unfortunately, there's only ONE bird rescue in the entire country and it is 7 hours away by car, each way. So I cannot learn how to handle them in real life unless I know someone nearby. I am looking for a bigger bird, and a big personality. Someone social & intelligent that I can read books to, and show my favorite songs. I want to open my mail in front of them like it was christmas and share the excitement. I like a bird that will almost communicate with me through noises and phrases.. All of these of course, are not guaranteed, and that's fine!I would like this bird to be THE bird, one and only. I'd like do go as all-out as I can within reason, budgies and cockatiels MIGHT be a bit too small for my taste nowadays (but nothing is set in stone!) Someone I can share the rest of my lifespan with preferably alongside my partner, and know for sure it won't be left behind after me when I pass. We are not going to have kids and I never felt the need to, but if anything my biological clock it ticking on parrots... their lifespans are massive! There aren't many options in Norway for exotic birds, so the ones I am going to list are predominantly the ones I know -exist- at all in my country. I believe Nordics & EU banned exotic bird import back in 2015 and what exists now are from breeders only and not wild caught, from what I know.
CURRENT ANIMALS:
We currently have 2 dogs and a cat, which is a bit of a problem. I know you -can- have them together, we have a few options to counter this. We would like our oldest chihuahua to live the rest of her life bird-free so far, she's reactive and will bark and possibly startle the bird, or she can become frightened of it. The chinese crested is very very calm with other animals of different species, so he will most likely be still in his blanket but will still be kept out of the bird's way. Our cat has prey drive for outside birds, so he will not share the room with one under any circumstances, which is where our number 1 problem comes in. We also had 12 aquariums, but I've now downscaled to 6 (and more to cut lol) in preparation for bird workload since I am no longer breeding & selling guppies.SPACE:
We have a spacious 3 story house in a semi-rural place by the open ocean. We have 4 neighbours total in our neighbourhood, so it's very quiet and nice. We have 2 rooms upstairs, one large and one smaller which we can turn into The Bird Room depending on what we get and how big they are. The cat will of course be banned from entering these rooms at all times. However, this means we will have to rotate our time with the pets to ensure they all get what they need. So the birds will not see us walking about but only hear us downstairs until we come up to take them out of the cage. The cat may be outside or separated from the livingroom while we bring the bird downstairs for 2~hours and rotate after dinner. We can spend upstairs time with them too of course!Another thing we can do, is have the bird's cage in our bedroom. This is not optimal if the bird has lots of dust (we're both allergic to dustmites with mild asthma) Then we'd have to think about how the bird reacts during the morning & night since we sleep in a little, and stay up late, if they start calling and would lose sleep if they had different routines then us. Having a bird cage in the livingroom would be the best if only for the cat. I do not like to think about the cat trying to scale the cage and climb up, wafting his paws through the bars and whatnot. He already agitates the chihuahua through her cage as is so this is probably a future sight if anything.
FINANCES:
I have my own business as a freelance artist, alongside being on welfare for chronic illness. So you might say we have lots of time to committ to these birds during the day. We rarely ever leave the house, even to visit family, even then we keep it short because I do not like leaving the dogs in their cages for more then 3-4 hours at most. This would also go for the birds and then some. That said, after paying for my current car by next year, I'm starting a bird bank account either way...just in case. We don't have "macaw money" but I'd definitely go crazy with whatever's needed for the bird. Looking at cages for $1500 double the price of the bird alone, + toys and food.My only concern is avian vet, there are only a handful of them in Norway that I know of after looking up a list in a Norwegian parrot group. Both of the "closest" ones are 2 hours away by car in either direction, which is strenuous but doable. I can only hope we do not have an emergency situation. I'm planning on doing local calls to see if there actually are a few avian vets closer by, they don't really advertise other then "Small Pet Vet" that deals with rodents and such.
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