Pet birds are a relatively small but highly engaged part of the U.S. pet-owning population. APPA’s 2025 Bird, Small Animal & Horse Report counts 6 million U.S. households that own birds, while APPA reports 95 million U.S. pet-owning households overall in its 2025 National Pet Owners Survey. The figures below show who owns birds, which species are common, how owners seek care information, and what health, travel, and licensing rules mean in practice.
Contents
- Pet bird ownership in the United States
- Species and owner trends
- How bird owners shop and learn
- Gifts, supplements, and long-term planning
- Care, health, and household safety
- Travel, import, and identification rules
- Licensing and welfare thresholds
Pet bird ownership in the United States
APPA’s 2025 Bird, Small Animal & Horse Report puts bird ownership at 6 million U.S. households. That is a niche segment compared with APPA’s reported 95 million U.S. households owning a pet overall, but the bird-owner population shows substantial involvement in daily care and planning. The comparison describes different APPA research measures and report periods, so it should not be treated as a precise share of all pet households.
APPA’s 2024 nationwide survey reported that 66% of U.S. households owned a pet in the 2023–2024 study, equivalent to 86.9 million households. In that same nationwide survey, 75% of pet owners said they stayed committed to their current standard of care, while 56% stayed loyal to their pet’s brand. At the same time, 31% viewed pet supplies as discretionary and planned to curtail purchases to save money. These broad pet-owner results provide context for bird-care decisions, but they are not bird-only percentages.
APPA’s 2023–2024 spending release reported total U.S. pet ownership spending of $136.8 billion in its 2023 state-of-the-industry data. That figure covers the pet industry overall rather than bird households specifically.
The APPA 2024 bird report was built from the 2023 and 2024 surveys, with 6,979 respondents in the 2023 survey and 7,539 in the 2024 survey, according to the AVMA sourcebook introduction cited with the report materials. The 2024 report spans more than 200 pages of analysis and visuals. The 2025 bird, small animal, and horse edition is one of four quarterly APPA research reports and also contains more than 200 pages.
Species and owner trends
Parakeets and cockatiels are prominent among the species figures reported by APPA. In the 2025 Bird, Small Animal & Horse Report, 28% of bird owners have a parakeet and 19% have a cockatiel. Cockatiel ownership was up 58% from 2023 in that report. The report also says 22% of bird owners are Gen Z, with Gen Z bird ownership up 22% from 2023.
APPA’s 2024 bird report records a shift in the size profile of owned birds. Small bird ownership reached 63% in 2024, compared with 45% in 2018. Because these are report-specific ownership measures, the figures show a change in the reported composition of bird ownership rather than a count of birds in U.S. households.
The same 2024 report includes a HABSCORE range of 55.9 to 57.2 out of 70 across APPA’s bird, small-animal, and horse segments. The supplied report description does not assign a separate score to birds, so the range should be read as a cross-segment measure rather than a bird-only result.
| Measure | Reported figure | Period or comparison |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. households owning birds | 6 million | APPA 2025 bird report |
| Bird owners with a parakeet | 28% | APPA 2025 bird report |
| Bird owners with a cockatiel | 19% | APPA 2025 bird report |
| Small bird ownership | 63% | 2024 |
| Small bird ownership | 45% | 2018 |
| Gen Z share of bird owners | 22% | APPA 2025 bird report |
How bird owners shop and learn
Bird stores remain important points of contact. APPA’s 2025 bird report says 25% of bird owners rely on bird stores for bird-care information, while 28% rely on bird-store personnel. Reliance on stores for information was up 47% from 2018, and reliance on store personnel was up 22% from 2018. The personnel figure is 3 percentage points higher than the general bird-store information figure.
Bird stores are also the leading reported acquisition location in the 2025 report: 21% of bird owners obtain their pet at bird stores. Bird-store acquisition was up 62% over the last six years. APPA describes bird owners who are pet buyers as increasingly influenced by in-person shopping, with bird stores remaining the top acquisition location at 21%.
Social media has become another information channel. APPA’s 2024 bird report says social-media reliance rose from 17% to 25%. That is an 8-percentage-point increase from the prior reported level. The change does not establish which platforms owners use or whether social media replaced another source; it measures the reported channel levels.
These figures suggest that bird-care guidance is distributed across retail staff, stores, and online channels. For owners, the practical implication is to distinguish general product advice from health advice that requires an avian veterinarian or another qualified professional.
Gifts, supplements, and long-term planning
Bird ownership also appears in discretionary purchases and long-term household planning. APPA’s 2025 bird report says 76% of bird owners give gifts to their birds. Thirty-eight percent purchase gifts for any occasion, while 33% purchase gifts for Christmas. Christmas gifting is therefore 5 percentage points lower than gifting for any occasion. The report puts average bird-gift spending at $40.52 per gift, up 42% from 2023.
APPA’s 2024 bird report says 62% of bird owners have or plan to make provisions for their birds in their wills. The comparable reported level was 52% in 2018, making the later figure 10 percentage points higher. This is a planning measure, not a measure of completed legal documents, and “have or plan to make provisions” combines two owner situations.
The 2024 report also records a 32% increase in bird-owner vitamin and supplement purchases since 2018. It says 42% of bird owners now seek professional grooming services. The report further states that bird owners now gift their pets 7 percentage points more often than the 2018 level of 69%, reaching 76%.
| Bird-owner behavior | Figure | Source period |
|---|---|---|
| Give gifts to their birds | 76% | APPA 2025 bird report |
| Purchase gifts for any occasion | 38% | APPA 2025 bird report |
| Purchase gifts for Christmas | 33% | APPA 2025 bird report |
| Average spend per bird gift | $40.52 | APPA 2025 bird report |
| Have or plan will provisions | 62% | APPA 2024 bird report |
| Seek professional grooming | 42% | APPA 2024 bird report |
Care, health, and household safety
The CDC’s Healthy Pets, Healthy People: Birds guidance emphasizes that pet birds can have a long lifespan and require special care and commitment. It recommends waiting 30 days before introducing a new bird to existing birds. The CDC also recommends taking a newly purchased or adopted bird to an avian veterinarian within a few days.
Household hygiene is a repeated theme in the CDC guidance. Owners should wash their hands after handling birds, bird toys, food or water dishes, or cleaning cages. Birds should not be cleaned in kitchen sinks, to avoid cross-contamination. Cages and perches should be kept clean to prevent droppings buildup.
The CDC says birds should be housed in warm, draft-free locations with adequate lighting, and children should be supervised closely around birds. It also notes that certain bird types may not be suitable in homes with young children or people who are immunocompromised. These are household-safety considerations rather than ownership percentages.
The CDC lists psittacosis as one of three diseases that pet birds can spread to people on its bird page. For injuries, the CDC says a bird bite or scratch needs attention if the owner’s last tetanus shot was more than 5 years ago. Medical attention is also advised if a bird wound becomes red, painful, warm, or swollen.
Travel, import, and identification rules
USDA APHIS defines a pet bird shipment as five or fewer birds brought into the United States for non-resale use. Six or more pet birds do not qualify for pet travel under the cited USDA rules. These thresholds are about the regulatory definition and travel eligibility, not a recommendation for household flock size.
For pet birds entering at air or sea ports, USDA requires a 30-day Federal Quarantine. USDA also says all pet birds from non-Canada origins require a 30-day quarantine with mandatory testing for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and Newcastle disease. Import inspection must be arranged at least 3 business days in advance, and the original import permit is valid for 30 days.
USDA says U.S.-origin pet birds weighing more than 100 grams must be identified by microchip, leg band, or tattoo for home-quarantine eligibility after returning from HPAI-free countries. The 100-gram identification rule applies to birds returning from outside the United States after February 19, 2018. These requirements concern specific return and quarantine circumstances, so owners should check the applicable USDA process before travel.
USDA classifies pet-bird species as small species weighing 250 grams or less and large species weighing more than 250 grams. The classification is used in the cited licensing and species-list rules and is separate from APPA’s consumer-research categories.
Licensing and welfare thresholds
USDA APHIS says a Class A license is required when a person sells more than 200 small pet birds annually. For large pet bird species, a Class A license is required when a person sells more than 8 annually. A Class C license is required if a person exhibits more than 8 pet bird species. USDA’s Class C rule also includes an exemption for 4 or fewer raptors.
APHIS published new bird welfare standards on February 21, 2023. New compliance requirements for bird licensees began February 21, 2024. The timing distinguishes publication of the standards from the start of compliance.
USDA also says licensees may obtain farm-type poultry for exhibition only when the source sells less than 50% of its domesticated farm animals for regulated purposes in a calendar year. This is a source-eligibility condition for exhibition, not a household-pet ownership statistic.
Together, the USDA thresholds show why bird ownership, commercial sales, exhibition, and international travel should be treated as separate regulatory situations. The relevant trigger may be the number of birds, their weight, the number of species, the annual sales volume, or the bird’s travel origin and destination.