Hello everyone.
Me and my wife have been thinking of getting a companion bird for the last few years. We have done a lot of research as well, but are still not sure what species we should get.
We kept a friend's Orange Winged Amazon for 5-6 months and it was lovely. She was very sweet, and we loved having her. She didn't like me much most of the time, but loved my wife. She was loud a couple of times a day when she contact called, all the other sounds she made were mellow and sweet. I see though how much capable she or another orange winged with a different character would be to get us in trouble with neighbors, so we would be very hesitant to get an amazon.
Also, my dream birds are African Greys, but we have to go to work 8 hours a day and plan to have a baby in a few years and these two factors seem to be too much for Greys according to all I have read. I talked to a rescue as well and the guy was very nice, and seemed to like me, but was kind of dismissive of me getting an African Grey because I am notb home all day.
So getting to the options we seem to have, I like quakers a lot, and green cheek conures. I prefer quakers as they are bigger birds. I don't mind birds that can be loud sometimes, and I know they will, but I had a budgie that I loved to death, and he mumbled all day while pushing his toy all around the floor, and I would rather not have that. I honestly preferred the amazon's two three times a day contact call than the 8 hour chatter. That is why I didn't mention cockatiels. And pretty and smart Senegals seem to be a 1 person bird.
So which option do you think is better for us? We dont really care if it talks and how many words and stuff like that. We are looking for a companion bird to hang out with us and be our buddy. Our concern is to get a bird we can harmonically(as much as possible, I know they are crazy clowns lol) live with and properly care for.
We will get the biggest cage we can find, as it seems a challenge to get a huge cage with proper smaller bird bar spacing for some reason and we have looked into diet, avian vet, insurance, uv lighting etc.
I know my post is broad, I hope you have some advice and suggestions. Thanks for reading my long post anyway.