Want a Pet? Consider a Parakeet

Cosmo lives with me.

He has his own space but occasionally, he likes to leave it and explore the rest of our domain. Being only about four inches tall (with an additional two inches of tail feather), he can hike across the books. He crosses Dickens in a single bound and-scrabbling on short skinny legs-makes short work of Shakespeare. He has no respect for paperback mysteries. If I am not watchful, he will gnaw the pages until they rip and when I scold him, he looks at me sideways.

 If I am reading, he will come and stand on the page and look directly in my face, as if he demands to be heard. He will bite me if I keep ignoring him. Don’t think because he is small that this bite won’t hurt. It’s not the size of the beak on the bird that matters.

Parakeets are as affectionate, playful and fun to interact with as dogs or cats. The key is that they are smaller and have a lot more to say…literally. As members of the parrot family, they have the ability to mimic human speech- although they tend to go for high pitched voices and noises rather than deep ones, which is why I have had no luck teaching Cosmo to sing “A Kiss to Build A Dream On” in the voice of Louis Armstrong.

Image via Wikipedia

He does like the Andy Griffith theme song, though, since it’s lyrics are easier to remember…for him, anyway.

Birdseed tends to be cheap and at Wal Mart, a big can which lasts five months can be had for $6 dollars. Parakeets are not really clean. Birds are beautiful pets, but they are slobs. However, you can get a net to put around the birds cage so they won’t fling seeds and feathers everywhere.

Parakeets can, and must be taught to come when you call them, recognize their own name and perch on your finger, which is done gradually. Their cages need cleaning and a water change everyday. When it comes to buying a cage, the bigger the better.

Parakeets also need noise. They are prey animals in thier native land of Austrailia and the instinct stays. For them, a quiet room means that a predator is stalking them. So, if you are going to be gone for the day, leave a radio playing in the background. It’s good to have relaxing music since music with lots of shouts, whistles and shrieks will make them nervous.

Cosmo came from a pet store and I don’t know much about his life before I brought him home in a little cardboard box and popped him in his cage.

I’ve since learned that it is better to get a parakeet from a breeder. The difference is price and also treatment. Pet store birds cost about $15 while breeder parakeets ones usually cost $20-$25.

As I’ve said before, Cosmo does bite,  and this may be evidence of a troubled childhood- maybe he was snatched as a hatchling. In any case, retail pet stores are notorious for bad care of small animals- and parakeets are teeny.

If having a parakeet sounds good to you, there is a lot more to learn and plenty of information on the web.