I have had my Cockatoo for about a month now. I initially went to the pet store with hopes of getting an African Grey as I was highly interested in the Grey’s strong vocabulary. However, at the store we met a surrendered Goffin Cockatoo by the name of Maggie. She was 21 years old and was surrendered as her previous owner had passed away and her family was unable to take care of her. My SO fell in love with Maggie almost immediately and wanted her really bad. At first I was unsure as I had not done research on cockatoos yet, so I went home and did some research and felt that a Cockatoo would be a good fit for us personality-wise. From there we went back to the store on three separate occasions to see her to get a feel for her personality, and then we brought her home.
Sadly, she was not taken care of all too well. Upon a vet visit with an aviary vet, we found that she was being fed the wrong food and was in a cage much too small for her. Since then we have upgraded and got her a large cage, put her on better food, and play with her daily. She is very friendly and absolutely loves to cuddle. When she’s not cuddling she spends most of her day on top of her cage on her perch yelling “hello” every time someone walks by the cage.
I was initially a bit iffy about a Cockatoo based on what I’d read about them being non-stop screamers, but now that I have her I wouldn’t trade her for the world