Parrots that are bred for pets may be hand fed or otherwise accustomed to interacting with people from a young age to help ensure they will be tame and trusting.

However, parrots are not low maintenance pets; they require feeding, grooming, veterinary care, training, environmental enrichment through the provision of toys, exercise, and social interaction (with other parrots or humans) for good health.

Some large parrot species, including large cockatoos, Amazons, and macaws, have very long lifespans with 80 years being reported and record ages of over one hundred.

Small parrots, such as lovebirds, hanging parrots, and budgies have shorter life spans of up to 15–20 years. Some parrot species can be quite loud, and many of the larger parrots can be destructive and require a very large cage, and a regular supply of new toys, branches, or other items to chew up.

The intelligence of parrots means they are quick to learn tricks and other behaviors — both good and bad — that will get them what they want, such as attention or treats. The popularity, longevity, and intelligence of many of the larger species of pet parrots has led to many of these birds being re-homed during the course of their long lifespans.

A common problem is that large parrot species which are cuddly and gentle as juveniles will mature into intelligent, complex, often demanding adults that can outlive their owners. Due to these problems, and the fact that homeless parrots are not euthanized like dogs and cats, parrot adoption centers and sanctuaries are becoming more common.

The popularity of parrots as pets has led to a thriving — and often illegal — trade in the birds, and some species are now threatened with extinction. A combination of trapping of wild birds and damage to parrot habitats makes survival difficult or even impossible for some species of parrot. Importation of wild caught parrots into the US and Europe is illegal.

The trade continues unabated in some countries. A report published in January 2007 presents a clear picture of the wild-caught parrot trade in Mexico, stating: "The majority of parrots captured in Mexico stay in the country for the domestic trade.

A small percentage of this capture, 4% to 14%, is smuggled into the USA." In the early 1980s an American college student who worked his way through school smuggling parrots across the Rio Grande put his contraband Mexican birds in a cage on an inflatable raft and floated with them across the international river to the U.S. side where a partner would be waiting.

Parrots are popular as pets due to their sociable and affectionate nature, intelligence, bright colours, and ability to imitate human voices.

The domesticated Budgerigar, a small parrot, is the most popular of all pet bird species. In 1992 the newspaper USA Today published that there were 11 million pet birds in the United States alone, many of them parrots.


Europeans kept birds matching the description of the Rose-ringed Parakeet (or called the ring-necked parrot), such as in this first century account by Pliny the Elder. As they have been prized for thousands of years for their beauty and ability to talk, they have also often been misunderstood.

For example, author Wolfgang de Grahl discusses in his 1987 book "The Grey Parrot," that some importers allowed parrots to drink only coffee while they were being shipped by boat considering pure water to be detrimental and believing that their actions would increase survival rates during shipping. (These days it is commonly accepted that the caffeine in coffee is toxic to birds.)

Pet parrots may be kept in a cage or aviary; though generally, tame parrots should be allowed out regularly on a stand or gym. Depending on locality, parrots may be either wild caught or be captive bred, though in most areas without native parrots, pet parrots are captive bred.

Parrots species that are commonly kept as pets include conures, macaws, Amazons, cockatoos, African Greys, lovebirds, cockatiels, budgerigars, eclectus, Caiques, parakeets, Pionus and Poicephalus.

Species vary in their temperament, noise level, talking ability, cuddliness with people, and care needs, although how a parrot has been raised usually greatly affects its personality.

Parrots can make excellent companion animals, and can form close, affectionate bonds with their owners. However they invariably require an enormous amount of attention, care and intellectual stimulation to thrive, akin to that required by a three year old child, which many people find themselves unable to provide in the long term.

Many species can imitate human speech or other sounds, and the results of a study by Irene Pepperberg suggested a high learning ability in an African Grey Parrot named Alex. Alex was trained to use words to identify objects, describe them, count them, and even answer complex questions such as "How many red squares?" with over 80% accuracy.

A second example is that of N'kisi, another African grey, which has been shown to have a vocabulary of approximately a thousand words and has displayed an ability to invent as well as use words in context and in the correct tense.

Parrots do not have vocal cords, so sound is accomplished by expelling air across the mouth of the bifurcated trachea. Different sounds are produced by changing the depth and shape of trachea.

African Grey Parrots of all subspecies are known for their superior ability to imitate sounds and human speech. This ability has made them prized as pets from ancient time to now. In the Masnavi, a writing by Rumi of Persia, AD 1250, the author talks about an ancient method for training parrots to speak.

Although most parrot species are able to imitate, some of the Amazon parrots are generally regarded as the next-best imitators and speakers of the parrot world. The question of why birds imitate remains open, but those that do often score very high on tests designed to measure problem solving ability.

Wild African Grey Parrots have been observed imitating other birds. Most other wild parrots have not been observed imitating other species.

Humans and parrots have a complicated relationship. Economically they can be beneficial to communities as sources of income from the pet trade and are highly marketable tourism draws and symbols. But some species are also economically important pests, particularly some cockatoo species in Australia.

Some parrots have also benefited from human changes to the environment in some instances, and have expanded their ranges where agricultural practices, and many parrots have declined as well. It is possible to devote careers to parrots. Zoos and aquariums employ keepers to care for and shape the behavior of parrots.

Some veterinarians who specialize in avian medicine will treat parrots exclusively. Biologists study parrot populations in the wild and help to conserve wild populations. Aviculturalists breed and sell parrots for the pet trade. As tens of millions parrots have been removed from the wild, and parrots have been traded in greater numbers and for far longer than any other group of wild animals.

Many parrot species are still threatened by this trade as well as habitat loss, predation by introduced species, and hunting for food or feathers. Some parrot species are agricultural pests,eating fruits, grains, and other crops, but parrots can also benefit economies through birdwatching based ecotourism.[

Studies with captive birds have given us insight into which birds are the most intelligent. While parrots have the distinction of being able to mimic human speech, studies with the African Grey Parrot have shown that some are able to associate words with their meanings and form simple sentences.

Along with crows, ravens, and jays (family Corvidae), parrots are considered the most intelligent of birds. The brain-to body size ratio of psittacines and corvines is actually comparable to that of higher primates. One argument against the supposed intelligent capabilities of bird species is that birds have a relatively small cerebral cortex, which is the part of the brain considered to be the main area of intelligence in other animals.

However, it seems that birds use a different part of their brain, the medio-rostral neostriatum/hyperstriatum ventrale, as the seat of their intelligence. Not surprisingly, research has shown that these species tend to have the largest hyperstriata, and Dr. Harvey J. Karten, a neuroscientist at University of California, San Diego who has studied the physiology of birds, discovered that the lower part of avian brains are functionally similar to humans.

Not only have parrots demonstrated intelligence through scientific testing of their language using ability, but some species of parrot such as the Kea are also highly skilled at using tools and solving puzzles. Learning in early life is apparently important to all parrots, and much of that learning is social learning.

Social interactions are often practised with siblings, and in several species creches are formed with several broods, and these as well are important for learning social skills. Foraging behaviour is generally learnt from parents, and can be a very protracted affair. Supra-generalists and specialists are generally independent of their parents much quicker than partly specialised species which may have to learn skills over a long period of time as various resources become seasonally available.

Play forms a large part of learning in parrots, it can be solitary, and related to motor skills, or social. Species may engage in play fights or wild flights to practice predator evasion. An absence of stimuli can retard the development of young birds, as demonstrated by a group of Vasa Parrots kept in tiny cages with domesticated chickens from the age of 3 months; at 9 months these birds still behaved in the same way as 3 month olds, but had adopted some chicken behaviour.

In a similar fashion captive birds in zoo collections or pets can, if deprived of stimuli, develop stereotyped behaviours and harmful behaviours like self plucking. Aviculturists working with parrots have identified the need for environmental enrichment to keep parrots stimulated.