A good first bird??

[carol s]

Hi,

I am new to boards but need some advice on a first bird. I really don't want a budgie or cockatiel. I was looking at different conures. Any suggestions? We are a pet friendly household with three kids ages 12 through 5 and lots of activity. We looked at sun conures but are worried about noise. We also looked at green cheeks and liked them. Has anyone heard of a peach front? We saw a really nice one but I never heard of them. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Courtzrocks]

I LOVE GREEN CHEEKS!!! My next bird is a green cheek conure, they are so cute and so much quieter...but they are still little clowns...just be careful cos they can be nippy and conures tend to bond with one person so make sure they are handled by different people alot.

[birdsnreps]

gc's have a rep for being nippy, although not all of them are, but most of them can be. jendays and suns are really sweet, but if you dont KNOW that you can handle their screeches, dont even attempt to get one. unfortunately, all conures can be very loud when they wanna be, more-so than other birds of similar size. have you considered a bird from the poicephalus family?? they have the same good traits as the conures, but they are more even-tempered usually and are far less noisy.

[carol s]

Can you tell me which birds are in the poicephalus family so I can further research them?

thank you

[garenburkus]

mabye a white cap of a blue headed pinous would be good. They are quiet and soical.

[birdsnreps]

poi birds include meyers, senegals, red bellies, jardines, cape parrots, brown headed parrots, ruppell's, and a few others. here is a full list of poi's:

Poicephalus Main Page

we breed meyers, sennies, and red bellies ourselves, red bellies and meyers are some of my own personal faves. my breeder meyers are very shy, but not around me anymore. my red bellied breeders LOVE human attention and are very sweet little breeder birds, i can even get kisses and pet some of them. you can visit our "breeders" page from our website, click on the type of bird that you wanna look at, and you will see a general description of their personalities.

Sweet Skies Aviary — Our Breeders — Species we are currently breeding.

[isoscelestri]

The most common Poicephalus parrots are the Senegal Parrot and Meyer's Parrot. I think there are just two more after that, the Jardines Parrot (the largest) and the Red-bellied parrot.

Edit:
Looks like I posted a little late, listen to birdsnreps

[garenburkus]

Exotic Wings & Pet Things - Handfed Parrots

thats the first place I went to look at birds.
then talked to owners to get the real scoop.

[hyacinthLove]

welcome to the board, carol :) while i don' believe in "starter birds", i think that green cheek conures are wonderful little guys. they can be pretty screechy though, like most conures. pois are wonderful too, but i have also known many nippy senegals. it's best to just visit as many birds as possible and see which one you click with. you may want to try checking out your local shelter, too. there are many amazing homeless birds in need of a good family.

good luck! keep us updated!

[LyndaM]

I second the Pionus. They are such beautiful, wonderful birds with very even temperaments!