Its very popular right now to go on and on about how bad cockatoos are. They have a reputation for being only for the elite or most dedicated of parrot owners and impossible to own by the average person. That is the message some people want you to believe. I would tend to agree that a cockatoo owner needs to have a certain amount of dedication more so than the average person has. And that is more difficult when you have another human in the house whose tolerance and dedication level is lower than your own. A lot of sad case cockatoo rehomes come from complications with the other human. Usually this points more to a relationship problem between the couple than a real problem with the bird, but regardless the bird ends up needing a new home.
However, I don't think they have to be that bad. You can actually have one and work full time. I have two cockatoos plus a bunch of other birds and I'm a teacher. I also (gasp) have a life and sometimes I spend a few hours in the evening away from home. And my cockatoos are still fine. In terms of vocalizations, a citron can be very hit and miss. I have a larger sulfur crest(close relatives of citrons) and she is the quietest bird here most of the day. She lets out about 1-5 ear bleeding screams in the evening several times a week. But rarely is it more than one episode a day and usually each episode is about 30 seconds or less. My goffin's isn't too bad. She came to me doing a lot more screaming than she does now and she will carry on longer than the sulfur, but she's still not a screamer. I would say, if periodic loud screaming is a deal breaker, its probably best just to not get a cockatoo. To be on the safe side, realize that within the realm of normal for a cockatoo would be 1-20 minutes of periodic screaming a couple times a day. If the bird is doing more than that, then you might need to take a close look at what your reinforcing behaviorally, and what the bird has to do to work some of that energy off and keep its brain stimulated.
I would not let your work schedule kill your idea of having a cockatoo. Unless you have such a busy social life that you just aren't home most evenings or you like to go on month long vacations a couple times a year. Plan on spending a good hour or so with your bird most days, make sure you have plenty of toys. Make sure most days he also gets another hour or more of out of cage time that is on a gym or cage top with you just around the house to interact with but not cuddle with. That should be plenty unless you spoil it in the beginning and teach it that it needs mommy around all the time to feel secure. The dedication part of cockatoo ownership comes into play when you have to be somewhere and you have to skip the out of cage time than the bird normally gets. As compensation, for a cockatoo you really should pause to give the bird something new to do before you leave. Like a foraging toy or something to stimulate the brain rather than leaving with just the same old same old toys that its been staring at for the last several days. A cockatoo low on stimulation will pluck, over preen, do self repetitive behaviors and scream a lot. Sometimes you have to be a little more inventive with toys as they age than just going to the petstore and buying a new one. They get a little jaded, been there done that and its all SOOOO boring as they get older. Keeping new stuff that is safe in front of them becomes a challenge.
Also, to set you off the right foot since most neediness problems start right at the beginning when you bring it home-make sure the breeder weans the baby fully at the bird's own pace. Don't bring that bird home until its been eating completely on its own for a good month or more would be best. Let it learn to be a bird at the breeders. If you get it home and it regresses and your not sure what to do but you feel sorry for it, and you need to hand-feed it when both you and it are insecure...I just think thats setting you up from the start to have a bird that thinks it needs mommy around to comfort it all the time. Your insecurity about what to do with a crying baby makes the baby insecure and everybody is worried and unhappy about the poor crying baby. Thats just my opinion. I think cockatoo breeders could do the species a major service by just keeping the birds until long past risk of regressing. Personally, I would suggest that breeders before sending home a baby cockatoo make sure that it isn't crying at them at all and its not doing any of the baby cockatoo head bobbing thing. If its showing any of those behaviors at the breeders, its going to do a lot of them at the new home. And that the breeder do things like take it on short road trips, move its cage around and still the bird is secure. If that sort of thing throws it off and makes it cry, its not ready to leave the breeder IMO. That might mean the breeder keeps it for one month past the last hand-feeding, or six months past the last hand-feeding depending on the bird.
Melissa
