If you sense tension, consider giving your cockatoo its own separate living area. Last but not least, observe how your cockatoo interacts with your other pets. Four common species of cockatoo (Galah, Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Little Corella and Long-billed Corella) are well known to cause damage to agricultural crops. A professional groomer can perform these tasks without hurting your pet. Cockatoos require occasional grooming of their feathers, nails, and beaks. Schedule periodic veterinary wellness exams for your cockatoo to catch any illnesses that require immediate treatment. You can also feed them fruits and vegetables as treats. (Take care not to get a male and female unless you’re interested in breeding them!) To ensure that your cockatoos get the nutrition necessary for good health, feed them prepared seed mixes that include sprouted seeds that should be available at your local pet store. Cockatoos also do best when paired, so consider getting two birds instead of just one. In addition to their insatiable desire for human interaction, cockatoos need plenty of toys to stimulate them and occupy their attention. An umbrella cockatoo also makes a gentle, well-behaved, family-friendly choice. If you’d prefer a cockatoo on the quiet end of the noise spectrum (and can spend several hours a day interacting with your pet), choose a citron cockatoo. If you want a sweet-natured, easy-to-handle bird, choose the relatively compact bare-eyed cockatoo. While cockatoos in general can prove more demanding than many other pet birds, some species make better companions for beginners than others. Consider whether your lifestyle is compatible with these needs before going further. If you spend most of your time away from home, your cockatoo may become deeply unhappy and develop behavioral or physical health problems. Cockatoos also enjoy making loud, unprompted squawks and screeches, so take this into consideration if noise in your home represents a problem.Ĭockatoos also bond deeply with their owners, demanding daily care, stimulation, and interaction. But be patient, because this training process can take quite some time. Many prospective cockatoo owners look forward to teaching their new friends to mimic all kinds of sounds, including speech. What Prospective Cockatoo Owners Should Know However, before you bring a cockatoo home for the first time, you need to understand the following points about these occasionally demanding birds. Members of the Cacatuidae family, better known as cockatoos, can provide those qualities in abundance. Cockatoo food shouldn’t be boring to eat, either, and will love foods like Avi-Cakes, Pellet-Berries, Nutri-Berries, and Lafeber’s Premium Daily Diet Pellets.If you’re looking for a lively, affectionate, intelligent pet, you don’t have to limit yourself to a dog or cat. Like all companion parrots, cockatoos do not thrive on birdseed alone. Wild cockatoos forage all day for seeds and nuts, as well as coconuts and grain crops. Cockatoos are fun-loving, intelligent and energetic parrots, and their food should reflect those traits. A cockatoo new to the home should not be showered with non-stop attention, but rather given toys and other enrichment opportunities as well as intermittent attention so that the bird learns to keep itself entertained when the people in its life are not able to offer one-on-one time.įood for cockatoos should be nutritious, but should also include a foraging element as well. Cockatoos tend to be needier than other pet parrot species and an owner should set boundaries early on, otherwise the bird might scream for attention. A pet cockatoo will need a steady supply of appropriate items to chew and destroy. A cockatoo needs a well-constructed cage to not only prevent it from escaping but to prevent the bird from destroying it.
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