For over 11,000 years now, human beings have been taming animals as pets. There are many pet options one can get from the pet stores, including avian (cockatoo, parakeet, budge), reptiles (turtles, tortoises, snakes), amphibians (frog), aquatic (freshwater, saltwater), and rodent (hamster) pets among many other pet options. The pet shops trade in all these pets, and you could just walk in and pick one of your choices. Among the avian pets in the pet stores, there are parrots, large and small ones. Although some people prefer big birds and parrots, they may or may not be the best pet options. It’s not like every pet fits every home, whether it is a tiny or a large one. However, if you wanted to go for a large parrot, which one would be ideal for you? This article discusses the top four largest parrots you can get from the store.
Amazon parrots
These parrots belong to the Genus Amazona and have about forty parrot species, including Amazona Festiva, Amazona collaria, Amazona vittata, and Amazona finschi. The medium-sized, primarily green, small-tailed parrots originate from the New World, ranging from South America to Mexico and the Caribbean. Found in savannas, rainforests, palm groves, and scrub forests, these birds can live for as long as thirty years. These largest Amazon parrots are 28-33cm long and weigh 240 to 250g.
Personality- Like other parrots, Amazon parrots are vocal and quite fond of music and songs. For example, the male Amazon can sing a song as if he scripted the piece himself! Even if the song is off-tune, he will still sing it. These birds can learn to speak words and phrases and mimic sounds. Some Amazon parrots can differentiate between an oven, door bang, or a fellow parrot’s sound. They make various sounds which inform you about what’s happening.
For instance, an Amazon parrot will seek attention by making loud, noisy sounds. On the other hand, if it wants something, and Amazon parrot will scream loudly and make honk-like sounds in repetition. When you offer an amazon parrot a favorite treat, he makes shrill sounds in great delight. Besides their vocal nature, you can learn a lot about handling the bird by studying his body language. Extreme excitement while beak-wrestling could mean he is getting aggressive and does not want to be helped.
The care of an Amazon bird requires many things. One is bathing. Bathing is a must-do for an Amazon parrot. You can do him a spray bath, share with him in the shower, or the parrot can jump into his water dish and splash water about. Another aspect of caring for the Amazon parrot is providing meals for him. Amazon parrots mainly need a high-quality parrot mix offered in the right proportions. Fresh fruits, green vegetables, occasional mealworms, and millet sprays form great supplements for the Amazon parrot diet. For every food you give the Amazon parrot, do it in the right proportion.
Sometimes, you might have to scale down the food as these birds always beg their owners for table food, predisposing them to obesity. You also need to house your Amazon parrot in a spacious cage as part of caring for him. The cage should be big enough and properly spaced to allow the bird to stretch its wings with ease. Horizontal bars are recommended for the parrot’s climbing. The cage should have toys, perches, and things to climb to keep the parrot active. Cleaning isn’t an easy task and having a removable tray inside the cage helps hold the parrot’s poops.
Macaw
Another large parrot you can source from the pet store is the macaw. These long-tailed and colorful birds have eighteen species classified in six genera. The genera are Ara, Anodorhynchus, Cyanopsitta, Primolius, Orthopsittaca, and Diopsittaca. Like the Amazon parrots, macaws are found in the New World (South and Central America, Mexico, and Caribbean islands). You can also find them in the Pacific areas like Galapagos. One unique factor about the macaws is that one cannot tell the difference between a male and a female macaw despite the vivid colorations. These birds are indeed large. For example, the cobalt-blue hyacinth macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) found in Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay is the largest of all parrots, measuring 95–100 cm, and weighs 1.2-1.7kg. The smallest of the macaws, the red-shouldered macaw, weighs 150g.
Personality
The macaws are highly tamed parrots. Some of the captive macaws have lived up to 65years, showing that taming them calls for years of commitment. They have a personality that makes them tame despite the noisy, shrieking sounds they emit. These extremely social birds will create a racket when they feel an inclination and clown to draw attention. Their beaks are intimating because of their large sizes, but when you train them and socialize well with them, you will see the affectionate side of these birds. They have a shockingly loving heart and touching natures, although the macaws seem like a force to reckon with. Toys make them feel good, especially wooden toys. To make them happier, involve them in a challenging activity like foraging. Like other parrots, macaws can be taught to talk and mimic sounds and noises. In case you have neighbors, you might have to reconsider if buying a macaw will be comfortable for them since the macaws can emit extremely loud noises.
Care or Macaw
As part of the macaw’s care, you must get a tall cage that prevents the macaw’s long tail from hitting the cage bottom. The macaw parrot needs the largest cage among all other parrot birds. Naturally, the macaw would feed on native seeds, fruits, flowers, leaves, palm nuts, figs, nectar, and, in some regions, clay from exposed river banks while in the wild. In captivity, giving him foods rich in fats is important. You can also supplement the diet with Nutri-Berries, Ave-Cakes, and Pellet-Berries. Keeping the cag is also paramount for the macaw’s health.
Cockatoo
The cockatoo parrots are a group of 21species parrots belonging to the Cacatuidae, the only family in the superfamily Cacatuoidea. Cockatoo’s primary distribution lies in Australasia, ranging from the Philippines and the Wallacea eastern Indonesian islands to New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Australia.
Their curved beaks and prominent crests make them outstanding among the parrots. Unlike other parrots, cockatoos are less colored, and their primary plumage is pink, white, grey, or black. They have a lifespan of more than 30years. On average, cockatoos are 30-46cm long and weigh 70-630g.
Personality
Cockatoos are highly sociable birds. The tame cockatoos always want to be near their favorite people, making them nicknamed ‘velcro.’ The cockatoos are described to be behaving like two-year-old children. They are intelligent but very emotional. When they get grouchy, they can throw tantrums like a baby. When happy, these birds will play a lot and display silliness. Their lively and affectionate nature means that they will demand a lot of time and attention from the owners to bind closely with them. When you deprive them of affection, these birds will go into depression and even exhibit neurotic problems. Although they cannot speak as much as other parrots, the cockatoos’ speech abilities are decent. For instance, they can perfectly mimic words, sounds, and phrases. How many of these they will mimic depend on your efforts to train the cockatoo and his species. If you want to source a cockatoo with excellent speech capabilities, then go for Galah, sulfur-crested, and long-billed cockatoos. These are the best speakers of the cockatoo parrots.
Care
cockatoo demands a lot of attention from the owner because of their highly sociable nature. Therefore, you will need to create enough time for your bird. He also needs exercise, and so you must provide him with hanging, pickable, and chewable toys. Bells, softwood toys, vegetable-tanned leather, tree branches, rope toys, and cardboard form great toys for the cockatoos, but you must supervise the play session. Letting your cockatoo outside the cage for at least three hours and interacting with him for one hour is part of his care. In the wild, the cockatoo would eat nuts and seeds. For your captive cockatoo, fresh supplies and pellet supplements are vital. You can offer cockatoo seeds, seed mixes, and nuts only as treats.
African Grey Parrot
The African Grey parrot is another large parrot you could get from the pet shops. The bird is also known as Congo grey parrot or Congo African grey parrot and belongs to Psittacidae’s taxonomic family. The Grey parrot is an Old-World parrot and can be found in the equatorial regions like Angola, Cameroon, the Congo, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. The birds are predominantly grey but have black bills. They are medium-sized, weighing 400pounds and having a length of 33cm inches on average. Grey parrots can live up to 30years and more and have a 46-52cm wing stretch.
Personality
Like their fellow parrots, the African Grey parrots are highly social birds that enjoy head-scratching and a little petting. However, these birds are overly sensitive that if the physical contact is too much, they will not tolerate it and bite you. From experience, many bird owners agree that only experienced bird-keepers should tame the sensitive Grey parrot. Their sensitivity makes them unhappy at the slightest provocation, even changing a routine. However hard every family member could try to socialize with him, a Grey parrot could end up being close to just one person. These birds are great vocal communicators who will reach the peak speaking ability at just one year old. They are among the parrot family’s best talkers and can mimic words, phrases, and sounds after hearing them once or twice.
Care
the African Grey parrot is insurmountably intelligent and needs foraging and puzzle toys to challenge this intelligence. You could try LaFaber’s Nutri-Berries to give the bird good foraging challenges. For feeding, you could add grains, seeds, and berries to the Nutri-Berries pellets. The bird is prone to Vitamin A and D deficiency. You can provide him with vegetables high in beta-carotene, such as cooked sweet potato and fresh kale, and a balanced petted diet to handle this problem. Although they are intelligent, the Grey parrot is occasionally stressed. To help him manage such moments, put the cage with one corner against the wall instead of the middle of the room. Scratch their head a little and pet them shortly as some of them may not bear too close contact.
People have come to love avian pets and like taming them. However, the challenge could be in choosing the right large bird to adopt. This article discussed the top four largest parrots you could source from the pet store and their origin, personality, and care. If you wonder which birds are these, they are the Amazon parrots, macaws, cockatoos, and the African Grey parrot. Read the article for details on these parrot birds.
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