IndianRingNeck.com

Hi All
i am new to the Bird World.
iam looking at getting a ring neck, i have 3 young kids, are these birds good to have for a family pet?
i have heard so many different stories about this some say yes and other say NO, not good for kids is this true or not.
My kids all want to hold and play with it.
Any advise will be appreciated.
Thanks

Unfortunately, it depends on the temperament of the bird. Some IRNs are soooo gentle and will put up with anything and others just won't. Obviously the temperament of your bird is also affected by how you treat it but the bird's natural disposition also has a bearing on it. Unfortunately it really is the luck of the draw. You can get biters in any breed but I would say that there are probably other breeds of birds that you are more likely to get a child friendly bird (possibly a handraised cockatiel would be more likely to be child friendly?). I don't have children myself but recently someone was querying about how to stop aggressive behaviours because her child was getting increasingly scared of holding the bird because the bird was biting his ear. It would be interesting to hear from others who have experiences with children and IRNs.

Ellie.

We just got a baby IRN six days ago. Rikku is about a month old and we are hand feeding. I have a two year old grandson who has held Rikku with no problems. A big part of how well a bird will be with children is how well they are socialized with young children. We decided to hand feed for this reason, so we could ensure Rikku is used to a lot of people of all sizes, ages and both male and female. There really aren't ever any guarantees, though, because birds are wild animals first and foremost.

even my experience has been quite ok, my daughter (8) was more afraid of the bird than the other way round, but now she has got the courage to offer her finger to step up and mittu goes on to the finger .. sometimes when they are not the moods they show it by fluffing the feathers and making that aggresive posture of biting - thats the time when you need to stay off . till now he has bitten me many times but every time it has been to the extent of keep off levels only but never hard enough .. so i would say you can still try it out , one more suggestion is to bring them as babies so that they get to know you better - coming to that i really miss the bobbing heads when the birds were hungry and wanted to be fed .. the bobbing dance was lovely ..dont get to see it anymore

Hey!
Like Ellie said, it really does depend on the bird!!
I have 2.. One almost a year and one about 6 mths. I also have a young son who is 14 months. My older one is a little stroppy and likes to use his beak alot.. And my younger one probably feels bad chomping seed he is so gentle.
My lad won't touch them, but loves them. Always yelling bird, bird!!

I wouldn't let my older lutino (moz) near my kids because he likes to nip and nibble! He lords over my cat abd dogs, they avoid him like the plague because his idea of play is too rough for the big hairy wuss's!!
my younger violet ( crumb) I wouldn't let my boy hold until I was SURE he won't use his beak, even though he is very gentle.

If you want kids to be involved with them ( holding patting, scratching) I'd go with the earlier suggestion of a teil or a Quaker maybe? Even a lorikeet ( if you can handle watery poos)
I hope this helped a little!! ( workibg hard to get my 15 posts up so I can post pics of my guys!! )

All depends on how you raise them.

We have an IRN, 9 months old, have had him (Ekko) since he was 6 weeks old. We also have 9 kids ages 2-15 in the house everyday. Our Ekko is wonderful with all of them. We did a lot of research before we bought and also checked out so many different breeders. We found a breeder in Washington that made us feel very at ease with all the work and love she puts into her birds. We constantly talked on the phone and any questions I had she answered even after we had our baby bird. We talked the day we got him off the plane then talked everyday the first few days then about once a week for a few weeks until we were comfortable with what we were doing.

Thanks for sharing Cheryl. Sounds like you found an excellent breeder!

Ellie.