http://ianlafo.com/baby-house/
Baby House
would it be okay to house a baby parrot in a small cage until he gets older?
I’m bringing home my new redbelly/senegal soon and was wondering if it would be okay to house him/her in a small cage for about a month or 2 before I put him in his big cage (so that he won’t be able to hurt himself in anyway) because the breeder says that sometimes baby parrots will climb to the top of their cage and would not know how to get down and sometimes hurt themselves. what do you thinK?
But he will not even be completely weaned when i bring him home. He is barely 2 months. he can bite through the wires of a small cage already? Becuase I just bought a big wrought iron cage for him but don’t want to put him in yet because i dont know if he’ll climb and hurt himself and stuff. so its better if i just put him in the big cage?
You don’t mention how small the cage is – and that could mean different things to different people.
I would NOT house a red belly OR a senegal (they are two different species) in anything smaller than 20″ x 20″ x 24″ tall for any amount of time. And, I hope the bar spacing of your permanent wrought iron cage is no more than 1″ apart, otherwise the your bird could attempt to squeeze through and wind up getting stuck.
What really concerns me though is the fact that your question makes me feel you are not super knowledgable about parrots in general and I wonder WHY the breeder would allow you to bring home an UN-weaned baby bird! The weaning process and proper socialization is not that simple. The other thing that doesn’t sound good to me is the breeder telling you that the bird may not know how to climb down from the top of its cage. Climbing is part of the learning process in a bird and if it does get to the top (I assume you mean hanging upside down from the underside of the top of a cage) nothing too terrible could really happen other than it continues hanging until you come to rescue it! Yes, it could fall, but not likely. Birds are not stupid and are usually quite courageous. In 20 years or owning and breeding birds, I’ve NEVER found a baby bird in that predicament. I have found them with legs or wings caught between too small of bar spacing though so your bar spacing is indeed an important consideration for any cage, temporary or permanent.
I think you would do well to do some additional book reading or internet research before you bring your new baby home because just asking this one question is not the only thing you are going to need to know for giving your bird the best possible care and I’m not sure that the breeder is giving you all the correct knowledge either.
Good luck and feel free to email me if you would care to.
