A hand-raised chick costs more and comes to you already trusting people. A wild-caught adult is cheaper, arrives terrified, and may never fully settle.
There is a welfare argument here as well as a practical one, and it is worth having openly rather than in the comments of a sale post.
The practical side, for anyone with a frightened bird already:
- Weeks of just sitting near the cage doing nothing
- Hand-feeding through the bars before ever reaching in
- Never grabbing, never chasing round the cage with a hand
- Letting the bird come to you, however long that takes
- Clipping wings is a shortcut people use and it has its own costs
If you have tamed a wild-caught bird, how long did it take and where is it now? And for those who will not buy one on principle -- say why.