However, this was a decision we didn’t want to make lightly. Of course, the thought of adopting him occurred to us. He asks for those by bowing his head towards me. He gets sunflower seeds as reinforcers, but I have to end each training session by giving him a good head scratch. He also does a wolf whistle if I ask if he thinks Ripley (our Amazon) is pretty. I’ve been doing some clicker training with him and he’s now learning fast! He repeats a few words, is target trained, and he goes back onto or in his cage on cue. He adores my husband and gets along great with me as well. Fergus was adopted by a great home after a few months with us.Īnyway, we’ve had Mitri for about seven months and he seems to be doing great here. He’s actually the second Lesser Sulphur we’ve fostered, the other being another male named Fergus. He was surrendered to a local rescue when his owner became unable to care for him.

My husband, Quentin, and I have been fostering or bird-sitting various cockatoos for a few years, and our current foster bird is a stunning, seventeen-year-old male Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo named Mitri.

The Big Decision: To adopt or not to adopt. I encourage all people considering one of these birds to think carefully about their decision and learn all they can about cockatoos before adopting one. I also put a list of resources at the end for more information on the topics I bring up here. What I intended to do is outline what living with a cockatoo can be like, to help people considering adopting one make an informed decision. – Author’s note: I was going to write a short bit on my new cockatoo, but it turned into this essay about living with cockatoos in general. Mitri still lives with me and is still doing great! 2014 edit: wow, it’s been about five years since I first wrote this.

A cockatoo