I know this thread is old, but...
I lost a CAG to egg binding about 10 years ago. Paid $750 for him as a baby in around 2005.
February 2020, before Covid started, I’m dying for another CAG. Wife is visiting family in Houston (we live in South Florida), so I decide to make the move while she’s away so she can’t say no.
This respected bird store near me had THREE very juvenile CAGs. I never got around to asking the prices, because all three hated my guts anyway. Forget stepping up. I was lucky to get out of there with all 10 fingers still intact.
And then I saw Archie, a 10-month old YNA who not only jumped from his perch to the side of the cage to be closer to me, but cocked his head, lifted his foot, as if to say:
“You can pick me up. I WANT you to!”
$3500, and I had zero intention of getting an Amazon, let alone one of the Hot Three. I was fortunate in that I was flush with money because of a legal settlement. They could have said $10,000, and I would have paid it. I loved, and still love, this bird to death.
The moral of the story is try to not get TOO hung up on species, although everyone is certainly entitled to their favorites. But you just never now. As a side note, my CAG loved me, and although she would tolerate my wife, she couldn’t hold him, and she would walk across the floor to painfully bite her dangling toes while she was taking a nap on the coach. Archie? He adores both her and me.
Here he is with my wife (photo before his yellow came in), doing his “Please pick me up” move that won my heart in the store.