Ground hornbills (bucorvidae) as pets

[Silly Myna]

Whats the care for ground hornbills like in captivity, theyre definately too large to be indoor pets so their most definately outdoor pets,are they agressive in captivity, whats the avg price of one specimen, I know their almost entirely carnivorous so they would need a diet of live insects,frozen thawed/pre-killed mice,rats or quail ,how tame can they get if hand raised

 

[expressmailtome]

They are not kept as captive pets in the US, so I am not sure. I do know of their care as aviary birds, but again, not as pets. In the US, they cost thousands of dollars each.

 

[Aracorgi]

Most of the hornbills seem to be able to be decently tamed when handfed, but you'll probably be hard-pressed to find a handfed ground hornbill or any breeder who would be willing to handfeed one for you. The hornbills that you'll mostly find that are tame are the smaller species (red billed and von der deckens) and silvery cheeked for some reason. From what I've gathered, pretty much all of the species are pretty predatory and will try to catch and kill/eat anything that's smaller than they are. As for enclosures, you're looking at a huge aviary. I'm not sure of exact dimensions since it's not a species I've even thought about keeping, but big. And you're definitely looking at spending a pretty penny for the bird. Trumpeters are around $3500 and Emerald Forest sells silvery cheeks for $6k. So a ground hornbill is likely north of that. If you have Facebook, I'd recommend joining the softbill keepers group (sbk) and looking for posts there about hornbills or posting your questions. They're a pretty friendly group so they'll give you good advice.