Cockatiels As Pets

Why you need a cockatiel as a pet

Cockatiels are delightful birds and make wonderful pets. Cockatiels are very popular as pets due to the fact that they are easy to care for, have wonderful joyful personalities, and outlive budgies by ten or more years. Cockatiels are affordable to purchase, unlike the bigger parrot varieties, and are a great bird to start off with if you are planning on starting an aviary. They make wonderful pets for children, as they are gentle and will only bite if not trained properly or ill treated. Make sure your child knows how to handle the bird gently.

A cockatiel in your home will brighten your life, with its gentle nature and happy disposition. They usually have very entertaining characters of their own and will keep you amused for ages. Cockatiels can be trained to mimic words, love to whistle, and have also been known to perform a variety of other tricks.

At the moment, the cockatiels is rated the most popular and widely kept of the 340 species of psittacine birds. They are quick to pick up words and phrases, and love to whistle. A cockatiels speech is not as clear as the bigger parrots, but they are a lot less expensive. A cockatiel makes a great pet for a novice bird lover and a great bird to start breeding with, if you are interested in breeding birds, as they are also one of the easiest of all the species to breed with and can thus be depended upon to pay their own feed bills.

A lot of breeders say that the breeding of cockatiels quickly becomes an addiction. It is an art in itself to get those perfect pairings, so that you can try and get more beautiful and bigger offspring. A lot of breeders also enter their cockatiels in bird shows in the hopes of winning with their healthy or rare projects.

Cockatiels originated from Australia, but can now be found in every country across the globe.. The oldest records of cockatiels as pets dates back to 1845, and it is said that they became popular as pets about forty years later. It is not known just when they were first imported, but they are said to have first been bred in captivity in 1845.

The name cockatiel is said to be an English adaptation of a Dutch Sailors pronunciation of the Portugese word 'cacatitho', which means little cockatoo. The scientific name for cockatiels is nymphicus hollandicus, and this name has been in use since the 1950's.

Cockatiels have taken well to captivity, and are easy to care for and feed. All they need to stay happy and healthy, is a spacious cage, a few bird toys, fresh food and water daily, and the pleasure of your company.