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Re: New conure
Posted by Jason on 11/10/07

I got a conure about a year ago myself
and wrote a review of how I handled some
of the bad habits my Kiwi had. You can
check it out at http://trainyourbird.com/?p=10

On 10/19/07, Yardpro wrote:
> On 10/16/07, Popcorn wrote:
>> Hi. I have never owned a conure before, only parakeets
>> and cockatiels. Now I have come across a green cheek
>> conure, whose owner is not caring for him properly and I
>> have finally convinced him to let me have the bird. So,
>> this weekend my mom will be going to get him. He is seven
>> years old. They say they take the bird out sometimes and
>> I think that may mean about once a month. At the moment
>> he is living on the top of a dresser in a small cage where
>> he is above everyone's head and has no contact with them
>> unless they are cleaning him (which doesn't happen often)
>> or taking him out. I held him last night for the first
>> time and he is BITEY! And he bites hard with his strong
>> little beak. He broke the skin once (not bad but it did
>> bleed) and left a few bruises. His owners were saying
>> that it's just because there were so many people in the
>> room (there were five of us) but he seemed unaffected by
>> the amount of people and just has never been worked with
>> enough to stop the biting. When he started biting me I
>> imobilized him by grabbing him around the neck and holding
>> him against my body. He couldn't bite me from this
>> position but when he calmed down and I let him up he went
>> at it even harder and I repeated my response. It
>> continued until he got hard enough to break the skin and
>> then after that he was still biting but not as hard. I
>> think he got worked up when I was holding him because as I
>> grabbed his neck his owner (more his owners kid) freaked
>> out because I was "strangling" their bird. I kept calm
>> but I could tell their tension was mounting even though I
>> explained everything I was doing as I was doing it. I
>> don't think that helped the bird.
>> My problem is that I am in college and only see my birds
>> when I am home for break. My sister lets my birds out but
>> she will not know how to handle a biting bird. So the
>> bird will only be worked with when I am on breaks. I have
>> five weeks till I will be home and able to work with him
>> and even then it will only be a few days. In the mean
>> time I intend to have my mom/sister start introducing him
>> to the fresh food I feed my birds, since he is on an all
>> seed diet at the moment. I know that this is not an ideal
>> situation for taming him but it is better than the one the
>> bird lives in now.
>> My actually question is does anyone have any advice on the
>> biting issue or keeping him entertained while I am not
>> around? Any special toys I can get that can make him
>> happy and he can play on his own and not be bored?
>> Thanks, Popcorn!
>
> Hi Popcorn,
>
> I don't know whether we can help each other out or not,
> but I'm sure it's worth a try.
> I'm in the process of trying not to be forced to give
up
> a green cheeked conure that flew to me out of the blue sky.
I
> was so excited he came to me, but almost gave him to the
> avian vet the same day since I knew nothing about birds. I
> actually wanted to keep him but didn't know for sure that I
> was the right person. However my daughter expressed
interest
> in keeping him, so I decided to start learning about how to
> care for him. He's still biting 4 months later, and I still
> don't know enough, but in between classes, etc. (I'm a
> student too) I'm reading books about how to train parrots.
> He seems to like being with my family, but is displaying a
> certain amount of unhappiness. Since he's being treated
like
> royalty, I'm relatively certain that he's sad because he's
> been with other birds, and instinct is telling him he's
> missing an important part of his life. I really like him,
> but need to make it practical to keep him. Last week I
> talked to the man at Project Haven, a place people can take
> their birds if they no longer want them. He says that I
need
> to find him a mate, for that reason - the fact that he knows
> what it's like to live with other birds. I don't have the
> budget to go out and buy another bird, so maybe we should
get
> our birds together, and work on making them both happier if
> we can integrate them with each other. The detail I don't
> know is whether mine is male or female, but I might be able
> to find out, based on his leg band, if I can find our where
> he was hatched. If the two birds are not the same gender,
> maybe they would consider each other mates. What do you
> think? I'm in the Dallas area.
>
> Yardpro

Posts on this thread, including this one

• New conure, 10/16/07, by Popcorn.
• Re: New conure, 10/19/07, by Yardpro.
• Re: New conure, 10/19/07, by Popcorn.
• Re: New conure, 10/20/07, by Serena.
• Re: New conure, 11/10/07, by Jason.