The Golden Conure, also called the Queen of Bavaria, is the most expensive bird most people will ever consider and one of the most striking parrots alive. It is also a protected species with paperwork attached, which makes buying one a different exercise from buying any other conure.
Get the paperwork and keep it
Golden Conures are a protected species and captive-bred birds are sold with documentation. The rules around transport and sale differ by jurisdiction and they change, so do not rely on anything written on a page like this one - ask the breeder directly what documentation comes with the bird, get it in writing before money changes hands, and keep it for the life of the bird. A breeder who is vague about this is a breeder to walk away from, whatever the price looks like.
They are loud
People paying a great deal for a rare bird sometimes assume it will behave like a rare bird. It will not. A Golden Conure is as loud as any large Aratinga, with a penetrating call it uses freely. The price buys scarcity and beauty, not quiet.
They are intensely social
In the wild they live and even nest communally, and in captivity they are demanding of attention and notably rough-and-tumble in their play. They wrestle, they pin each other, they do the same to hands. Keepers describe them as among the most physical parrots they have handled - delightful if that is what you want and overwhelming if it is not.
Experience matters here
Between the price, the noise, the social needs and the paperwork, this is not a species to learn on. Most people who keep Goldens successfully kept other conures first and knew exactly what they were taking on.
Living with one
Twenty-five to thirty-five years. A large cage, a pelleted base with vegetables, plenty to chew, and a great deal of interaction. They are prone to feather plucking when under-occupied, as most intelligent parrots are.
Why people keep them anyway
Because there is nothing else like one. A Golden in good feather is a solid block of yellow with green flights, and they are bold, comic, affectionate birds with none of the nervousness you might expect from something rare. The people who have them are not collectors. They are conure keepers who fell for this one.
Buying one
A smaller group of breeders raise Goldens than almost anything else at this level of demand, which means reputation travels. Ask other keepers. Ask for the documentation up front, ask about disease testing, and ask to meet the bird rather than buying from photographs. The breeders listed on this page raise Golden Conures and can be contacted directly through the site.