Why not get quails instead of parrots?

If a parrot free flies in your house, it will destroy everything it can, because that's what parrots do for fun. It will also harass any other pets you have, seemingly for no reason other than fun, and will potentially do the same to houseguests. Plus there's the escape risk. If you're willing to outfit an entire room with toys and a bird-safe jungle gym and dedicate multiple hours a day to enrichment and interaction, plus the time you'll spend getting and preparing proper food for a parrot (not just pellets! they need fresh food), replacing toys, and cleaning up, then maybe you'll do well with a rescue parrot. Otherwise, get something else.
Even lovebirds and parakeets are parrots! They're small parrots and aren't quite as intelligent, so are slightly easier to keep, but the vast majority still don't get the proper care. Plus, even small birds live 20-30 years.
If you absolutely want a fancy bird, try a pheasant in an outdoor pen. If you want a singing indoor bird, go for finches, but not in one of those tiny cages. Nice-sized flight cage all the way. If you want a friendly, intelligent indoor bird, go with pigeons.

IMO, practically no bird should be kept alone unless they are so mentally or physically disabled they are unable to safely interact with other birds. Finches, pheasants, parrots or quail - very, very few birds are solitary in the wild. Some apparently are outside the breeding season, but any bird that in the wild would be part of a flock or pair even when not breeding should not be kept as a solitary pet. No matter what you do, a human can never fully substitute a real, avian partner. Breeding hormones will show up eventually and the bird will be miserable because you can't give it what it wants and if it tries to make you understand that it's just not good enough (which parrots usually do by biting) you'll withdraw even further from the poor neglected creature.

If you can provide a sufficiently spacious enclosure and a partner for the bird, however, you can absolutely keep parrots as well as other birds - as long as you can accept all the noise, mess and so on, and deal with the fact that it might not become even the slightest bit tame or ever say a word. It might even attack you every time you get near the enclosure. And for some of the larger species, a 'sufficiently large enclosure' might be the kind you'd see in a zoo - 10x20 ft for instance, but bigger is always better - so you need to be able to provide that as well.

Some parrots though (usually the smaller species like budgies), are able to be 'tame pets' despite having a partner. They likely won't be as cuddly as they would if the human were their partner, but they'll be happy and really - that's what matters. And in that case, they might make better pets than a few quail, which might be willing to sleep in you lap and eat from your hand but most likely wouldn't want to interact with you beyond that.

I like most animals and after reading all these +++ for game birds v. parrots. I'l pick game birds. I like parrots but I don't want them just like rodents that might look quit its 1 species I don't like, then rather a snake that will eat them but they are boring I had 1 for 4 to 5 years then I sold him.

THANKS NOW I HAVE
LEARNED SOMETHING!!!

Quails1 said:

Type of young (precocial vs altricial): You know that hand-feeding a baby bird is very time-consuming and difficult, right? Well first off, it depends on the bird! Another reason why I pick gamebirds is because they're precocial, like waterfowl. What precocial and altricial means:

Precocial indicates an animal that's born in an advanced state after birth and is able to walk, run, and eat by itself. The only precocial birds I could think of as house pets are gamebirds and waterfowl, with gamebirds (particularly quails) being my sole choice.

Altricial, on the other hand, is not the way to go; after birth, the animal is defined as helpless (and sometimes naked) and will heavily depend on the caretaker for its survival by being fed constantly and attended to throughout the day and night. This is an extremely time-consuming process (unless you really know how to do this precisely!). Altricial birds include parrots, songbirds, pigeons, etc.

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Dumdum said:

THANKS NOW I HAVE
LEARNED SOMETHING!!!

Click to expand...

You're very welcome! I'm glad you've learned from my advice. I find nurturing altricial birds (as chicks) to be much more laborious and grueling, especially from the fact they must be fed in their early stages of life after birth. It is a lot easier to rear precocious birds because they are born fully developed and are mobile (walking, running, feeding, and in some species, even flying), so there isn't much intensive parenting involved, other than providing a spacious brooder, as well as food, water (with safety precautions), and maybe a supplemental heat source... along with lots of handling if you want them to be tame.

I've always wanted a parrot, African grey probably. Told DW it'd be a better investment than a dog, a parrot would out live us. She doesn't want one...
Not sure how they taste, quail are pretty yummy...and the eggs are cool as crap.. guess I should probably just get some quail.

My phone screen is messed up, i accidentally voted for parrots but i meant to vote quail!
Ive had parakeets before and they were alot of work and not very happy as at the time i was still working and they needed more attention. (I finally sold them to a small town pet store shop who took care of birds well) anyway,
Now i have quail, and while mine arent very tame, they are happy and delightful little pets, i recommend quail to anyone!

Quails1 said:

You're very welcome! I'm glad you've learned from my advice. I find nurturing altricial birds (as chicks) to be much more laborious and grueling, especially from the fact they must be fed in their early stages of life after birth. It is a lot easier to rear precocious birds because they are born fully developed and are mobile (walking, running, feeding, and in some species, even flying), so there isn't much intensive parenting involved, other than providing a spacious brooder, as well as food, water (with safety precautions), and maybe a supplemental heat source... along with lots of handling if you want them to be tame.

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I had to agree sins me and my mom had raised a laughing dove chick that fell from it's nest. It was still mostly fluff hardly a sign of any feathers. although it was fun it was also a lot of work so I am glad I wont be feeding the coturnix quails if any hatch under my wyandotte bantam hen.

I chose quail because parrots are long lived and it's difficult to predict where life will lead over decades. We all want to commit ourselves to the full lifespan of our pets but the reality is that our lives change unpredictably over the years and I think the idea of having to rehome a parrot because of a change in housing, jobs, lifestyle, pets, family size etc. is sad for the person and unfair for the parrot.

Quail, once tamed, are always tame(except for that 3 week old period where they realized predators exist and freak out), and they cannot bite your eyeball or finger out, can only bite open a teensy weensy cut.
Parrots, are usually always tame, but sometimes during breeding season, for males, they get super agressive. They can bite you very hard.