Anyone with pet birds?

I love birds, and I've always wanted to get another one after my two budgies had to be put down due to illness years ago.
But where I'm staying atm is not ideal

Anyone here have pet birds? What would you say are the pros and cons of bird ownership?

anisepower

I don't presently have any birds but I have had many parakeets. I love birds so much. They don't come close to having dogs but I do love them.

Pros:

They are teachable.
They are singers
They do keep you company.
They are adaptable and can be cuddly if trained properly.
They can be very funny.
They don't require as much food or vet bills as other pets.

Cons:

They can be very noisy.
Their cages can spread a lot of mess if not cleaned often.
They must be housed in a warm environment away from drafts.

That is all that I can think of.

I don't have any input. As I don't have birds. My friend has a bird though. Just wanted to share.

My grandpa used to had 2 birds. He taught them to say hello whenever there has guess, but now he passed away, and we set them free

Yepper I have cockatiels (: I've been toying with the idea of snagging a baby blue mcaw from a friend's clutch but don't think im ready yet. My list:
Pros-
Entertaining, funny, sweet, easy to train, and great company
Cons-
Cleaning the cage and floor, costs lots for toys, food (raw diet), and cage liners, can be noisy, and can get moody.
I still wouldn't trade them for anything (:

I have 3 rescued parrots and 7 rescued finches (in addition to our dogs and cats. lol). All rescued from abusive homes. The parrots were covered in blood when I first saw them due to owner incompetence. I'm not joking when I say they were abused.

It's taken a huge amount of work, but they are all recovering nicely...even begging for petting and scratches

I'm meeting tomorrow with a local wildlife rehab that has 13 large parrots of various kinds that they cannot rehome due to their behavioral issues. Whether I can volunteer to help, or talk my wife into even more work...remains to be seen. lol.

I'm also writing a book on parrot/bird ownership and enrichment (physical, emotional, intellectual stimulation)...will have a website up soon.

Short version...pros...birds can be as intelligent as some children and/or dogs. Mine make me smile almost daily. Cons...they are a HUGE amount of work, especially trying to build trust and do training, not to mention daily cleanup of the mess they make. My birds take at least 3 hours of my time each day between feeding, training and socializing. And parrots in particular can be incredibly LOUD. I can hear my parrots from my neighbor's house. Luckily my neighbors are very interested and tolerant of how I rehab my animals. lol

Birds take an incredible amount of work if you wish to do it right. They need training and socialization just like dogs do, but they are (usually) much slower to trust and respond.

They make wonderful pets...if the owner is prepared properly

One more thing...having my birds (both the number of them and their issues), makes it impossible for me to travel or vacation for more than a day or two at most. Finding an animal sitter that you can trust, and that the birds can trust, is not always easy.

Makes me sad to hear of stories like that. I don't know how people can be so cruel
So good on you for helping those birds. They get another chance at a decent life I volunteered for an animal shelter about a year ago. I was only in one day a week but on that day after I helped with standard chores, I went out of my way to make sure all the birds (including various chickens, roosters, ducks, and geese, sometimes budgies and cockatiels) had adequate water and food.
Often, the water would be dirty and the poultry would have bad fruit and vegetable peelings they couldn't eat.. So I always cleaned it out and gave them fresh water and grain. And the seed in the parrot cages would be covered in empty husks.
It made me sad that it seemed noone was interested in the birds that much. I do know that some of other volunteers were scared of the birds, afraid that they might bite or that the roosters will chase them. But then, also everyone was busy taking care of the cats and dogs all day. But it sort of makes me glad that they are there so that someone can adopt them and give them a good home.

I thought about working at a shelter, but I can't. I'd bring too many animals home, and my heart would be broken for the ones that I couldn't.

I have a caique. They're very very funny birds. They walk and also hop. They randomly flop over on their backs to play with their toys. They can be trained pretty easily and do their best to talk.

The con is that he HATES my husband. I don't know why and we've tried everything to change this behavior. For such a small bird, he has a vicious bite.

sophiesmom, if your bird is male maybe he is being possessive of you? I know some birds can be territorial over their favourite family members.