She is a peach! Seriously. All my children can hold her. She never bites or even acts like it. I've had one year olds hold her. She gets a lot of attention for the most part. She might get overlooked a day here or there (not with food and everyone stops by to stay hi to her all day long) but she comes out about 6 days a week to roam the house. Supervised. Most of her time out is spent on the back of this couch in 'her' window. She just loves looking out. She is fearless and will walk over the cats if they are in her way. The cats respect her. She is over a pound in weight and is maybe 20 inches long so something walking around that size I guess is to be respected. :P She snuggles with me some nights.
If you can get over the cost of food (which is rather high for the first year) and nail the lighting and temps- they are such a great family pet. They do not urinate, only poop a couple times a week. Not messy animals by any stretch. I think anyone with birds already knows - if you don't handle them a lot as babies you aren't going to have a very people friendly bird. Same thing here. :D
Oh YEAH- that's right. I totally remember now reading about your crested. I have 1 crested and it will stay that way. I think we briefly chatted about this before...since I also had some other cresteds die on me early on. We adore him so he is our pet. But we don't want any babies from him.
I am warming up to snakes. I have caught a couple tiny racers and stuff around the house and that's all I have guts for- so far. Living in rattle snake country always keeps me on edge.