BlueBaby1023
Meeting neighbors
Hi all!
I recently joined here and posted in the intro forum, but haven't really posted since then.
Long story short, we are receiving a 7 year old male lutino cockatiel from my partner, Nathan's, coworker. It was her kids' pet, but now that they are all gone to college she doesn't want to care for him anymore, and he felt bad for the poor bird.
Neither of us have ever personally had birds, although I have a little bit of experience with budgies. We had planned on later in life getting a few birds, but a cockatiel wasn't on the list.
I have a few questions that didn't get answered on my intro thread, and I was hoping I could get better answers here.
The first, and I think is most important, is that I haven't gotten a clear answer on whether it's safe for him to live in our small pet room. We have a zoo here (15 current animals) of shelter pets or unwanted rescued animals, and we have an entire bedroom dedicated to the small pets. In there, we have a pair of rabbits, a pair of guinea pigs, and a pair of rats (although we may end up with more rats once we transition them into a larger cage).
Ideally we'd like him to be kept in the small pet room because we cannot keep him in a common space (5 cats that free range) and the only other space for him in our 4 bed house is in the spare bedroom as we have no space in our room, our pair of ferrets have free range of one room that will later be split between them and Fennec foxes, and the last room in the small pet room. Our spare room is intended for guests, so this is definitely not ideal but doable if it is not safe for him to be housed in the small pet room.
The main concern about housing him with the small pets for me is the ammonia. I know that birds (and all animals in general) are far more perceptive to smells than humans are. While it never smells like ammonia (urine) to me in the small animal room, I'm unsure if levels of ammonia that are undetectable to people are dangerous at all to birds because of their delicate respiratory system. In addition, I know dust in general is bad for birds, and it does get somewhat dusty in the small pet room when hay is being distributed to the guinea pigs and rabbits twice a day.
The other questions are just some recommendations for food pellets and toys. I'm sure he doesn't have a good diet right now, so I've been reading up on how to transition to chop and fresh foods, but I'm not sure what pellets are best to buy and what sort of toys to get him. I know mirrors are bad, so I've avoided those. We've just gotten him a few wicker/wooden toys so far, and are going to be getting him this cage:
http://www.amazon.com/Prevue-Produc...id=1421871525&sr=8-1&keywords=prevue+f40+cage
If there's anything else essential that I should get him, please let me know!
I recently joined here and posted in the intro forum, but haven't really posted since then.
Long story short, we are receiving a 7 year old male lutino cockatiel from my partner, Nathan's, coworker. It was her kids' pet, but now that they are all gone to college she doesn't want to care for him anymore, and he felt bad for the poor bird.
Neither of us have ever personally had birds, although I have a little bit of experience with budgies. We had planned on later in life getting a few birds, but a cockatiel wasn't on the list.
I have a few questions that didn't get answered on my intro thread, and I was hoping I could get better answers here.
The first, and I think is most important, is that I haven't gotten a clear answer on whether it's safe for him to live in our small pet room. We have a zoo here (15 current animals) of shelter pets or unwanted rescued animals, and we have an entire bedroom dedicated to the small pets. In there, we have a pair of rabbits, a pair of guinea pigs, and a pair of rats (although we may end up with more rats once we transition them into a larger cage).
Ideally we'd like him to be kept in the small pet room because we cannot keep him in a common space (5 cats that free range) and the only other space for him in our 4 bed house is in the spare bedroom as we have no space in our room, our pair of ferrets have free range of one room that will later be split between them and Fennec foxes, and the last room in the small pet room. Our spare room is intended for guests, so this is definitely not ideal but doable if it is not safe for him to be housed in the small pet room.
The main concern about housing him with the small pets for me is the ammonia. I know that birds (and all animals in general) are far more perceptive to smells than humans are. While it never smells like ammonia (urine) to me in the small animal room, I'm unsure if levels of ammonia that are undetectable to people are dangerous at all to birds because of their delicate respiratory system. In addition, I know dust in general is bad for birds, and it does get somewhat dusty in the small pet room when hay is being distributed to the guinea pigs and rabbits twice a day.
The other questions are just some recommendations for food pellets and toys. I'm sure he doesn't have a good diet right now, so I've been reading up on how to transition to chop and fresh foods, but I'm not sure what pellets are best to buy and what sort of toys to get him. I know mirrors are bad, so I've avoided those. We've just gotten him a few wicker/wooden toys so far, and are going to be getting him this cage:
http://www.amazon.com/Prevue-Produc...id=1421871525&sr=8-1&keywords=prevue+f40+cage
If there's anything else essential that I should get him, please let me know!