Conure and other small parrot community

Hello! I’m new to this community and new to owning a conure!

So I got Bishop, my four month Black Capped Conure, about 2 weeks ago. I work in a pet store and I bought him from my store when I noticed he was just not adjusting to the life there. He began picking his tail one weekend and was put into a quarantine cage until he stopped and was more socialized. But I had a feeling he was not going to recover well enough being in the quarantine cage so I decided to take him home for some stress free (the pet store life can be loud and busy!!) and loving time at home.

I took him to the vet the weekend I bought him to make sure he was well and that the tail chewing wasn’t medical. Luckily he was fine in the health department. I bought him some nice new toys and made his cage full of foraging centers and things to see and play with. So far, so good, his tail plucking has nearly stopped.

He does pick at it sometimes when I just put him back into his cage, which sometimes frightens me and I think he might be doing it for attention to stay out of the cage? I’m not too sure. I’ll put him back in his cage after a few hours of outside play with me and he’ll go right to it and start plucking. But so far he has only done this once since being home, which is very well done on his part.

If anyone has any tips for me to continue his recovery from tail plucking that would be greatly appreciate! I’d love all the feedback and healthy ideas I can get. Thank you!

But I hope the moderator(s) will allow me to share this post...every animal, feathered or not, deserves to live. (well, except ticks and scorpions, but that's another story) If I'm out of line posting this, please delete.



If y'all know me, you know I'm a big-time sucker for animals.

So is my friend Bernie, who runs a no-kill animal shelter back home in Tn...this woman BUSTS HER ASS on a daily basis, rescuing hundreds of dogs each year.

Animals that have been abused, neglected, and simply just forgotten and abandoned...those of you with pets know how expensive only one or two can be....imagine the costs for HUNDREDS.

Stop by her blog, and see about the current dollar for dollar match going on for donations right now...even a few dollars helps, especially when it's matched and doubled! Don't worry about buying me that oh-so-cool thingamabob you were going to get me for the holidaze...give the money to Bernie instead!

Yes, times are hard right now, but like I said...every little bit helps...and while we humans may have it hard, economically, at least we don't have to worry about being "humanely" killed.


Details here....
http://aplacetobark.blogspot.com/
(and yes, I can vouche for this, as she's someone I've known personally for years)

And even better...please pass this information along! We all operate in overlapping and different circles..but I have a hunch that there are animal overs in each of those circles. Call me crazy.

Hi everyone. We're new!

It is my pleasure to introduce Phoenix, our female Yellow-sided Green Cheek Conure.



X-posted to several other communities.

As some of you may know, I volunteer at our local bird rescue, Feathered Kisses. We do educational programs at places such as retirement/nursing homes and schools. Yesterday, we went to Bethany Manor in Horseheads, NY to do an educational program. I wanted to share some pictures from it. The residents were amazed at the birds and loved interacting with the birds and being able to touch them. Here is a link to my photo album from yesterday (and apologies for xposting):

090415.Horseheads.Bethany Manor

This is an album that opens when you click on it.

We adopted a black-capped conure over the weekend. He is just so beautiful. I love the black and white on his neck with the blue. He has red bits on his wings. I adopted him from a girl from Craigslist. She said he had cage aggression and that she graduated from college and didn't have time for him any more. She interviewed a lot of people today, but she saw how comfortable he was with me immediately. She said he is 5. She got him from Petsmart, where she socialized him. He's just so... calm. He definitely heard and talked to my other birds. Right now, he is upstairs in one of our spare rooms for his quarantine. This is the hardest part for me. When I left, he looked at me like "are you ever coming back??" So far, no cage aggression issues seen. My husband and I have both been able to put our hands in the cage (we had to make some perch adjustments after I had him in there). The cage isn't bad size, but by the end of quarantine, I think he will get upgraded (everyone is getting upgraded to nicer cages by Christmas time, except Sammy. I tried. He likes his cage, and that's fine with me. Whatever makes him happy makes me happy. Oh, and Peanut, who already has a conure condo at 32x23x60). His name was Dinero, but I thought it was kind of tacky, and new home = new name. We ended up renaming him Cuddle-Bug, because he just loves to Cuddle.

Pictures:

Cuddle-Bug - 090405

I finished coloring a couple of ACEOs the other day- this time I drew a couple sun conures. Enjoy :)






My Etsy Shop

x-posted to my journal & parrot_lovers

I just recently discovered the Firey shouldered conure and they are just absolutely gorgeous! I can't believe I had never heard of them before.

http://www.avianweb.com/fieryshoulderedconure.html

http://www.featheredexotics.com/fiery-shouldered%20conure%20pair2%20(Medium).jpg
http://www.donsbirds.com/babies/fiery_shouldered_conures.jpg

Took some pictures of the green cheeks the other day and unfortunately they came out a little dark. I tried lightening them a little bit, but ah well. They are still super cute, especially when they squish together like this.







Scritches pleeeease?


Toot-toot pretends to be an owl xD


*preen preen*


This picture defines their relationship perfectly, lol



x-posted to my own journal

I'm going to be the new "parront" of a 4-month-old baby Green-Cheeked Conure.
Please give me your opinions on the best diet.
I understand he will be having a pellet diet, and also needs fresh fruits/veggies and some kind of seed.

What do you use/recommend?
~thank you~

These aren't the best quality pictures by any means, but I figured some of you would appreciate them.







Booger was enjoying some time on my shoulder when Scooter flew over to join us. He's still a very nervous bird.

My husband and I are looking at the Vision II cages for our two-year old conure and we were wondering...anything we should know about either the cage, or the process of acclimatizing him to a new (and newly shaped) home? My lovebird got a new cage many years ago, but I bought him the *exact* same cage....and even that wigged him out for several days! Anything I should do to make the transition easier?

And on a totally unrelated note, my husband has long hair and every morning when he brushes it, Oscar goes bonkers....screams bloody murder until he's done. Anyone ever seen this before?

I'd really like to own a conure in the near (next few months) future, so I'm trying to find out as much as possible before I make the commitment to a very social, long-lived bird. I'm sorry if my questions are horribly obvious, please bear with me. :)

Is it possible to train a conure or other small parrot to fly to their cage to poop? I'm just thinking that if I have a bird that hangs out on my shoulder a lot, it's going to poop all over my shirts. What's your experience with this? Also, anything you wish someone had told you/that you'd known before you decided to become a bird owner? Thanks. :D

I'm starting to work on a picture of a dusky conure and was just wondering if any members here had some good photos of their dusky conure that they wouldn't mind sharing with me. I'd only be using them as reference pictures. :D

Thanks!

X-Posted to parrot_loves, bugerigars, and conures.

Hello fellow bird lovers!

I'm so glad I found this community. I spent two hours earlier looking at the old pictures posts. My boyfriend and I have a cinnamon green cheek conure named Micah who we think is male and we also have a budgie/parakeet named Lucian. We had a different budgie until December but he died, his name was Jae-Lee.

And now I'll post pictures:



Jae-Lee and Micah last late summer on my boyfriend's shoulder.


Micah and Jae-Lee.


This is perhaps one of my favourite pictures of Jae-Lee.


Lucian a couple months ago.


Lucian chewing on his freshly molted feather.


Micah and Lucian preening each other.


Micah hanging upside down from the sheets.


Micah and Lucian eating corn from my fingers.


Micah chewing on a molted feather.


Lucian on top of his bunk with Micah puffed up inside it.


I think that's enough for now. More to come.

I made some ACEOs featuring green cheek conures and a sun conure. Enjoy the cuteness :)











These are all for sale in my shop.

So I'm trying to find some new toys for my green cheeks and was just wondering...

What's your conure's favorite type of toys? Swings? leather? popsicle sticks?

I finished going through some of the pictures that were on my camera and I figured I'd share some cute pictures of my green cheeks with you all. Booger is currently going through a molt so she's looking a little shaggy. But at least she'll be getting some pretty new feathers coming in! I can't wait until she molts out her clipped primary feathers.




Booger & Jon chillin' in my room while I was doing some homework


Toot-Toot is quite the sucker for popcorn


Booger was still trying to figure out if she liked it or not.


Oopsies!


Toot-Toot lookes cute.


NOM NOM NOM


Chillin' on the orb


Booger lost her head! :O







x-posted to my personal journal

i lived with my former roommate for about a year, and she had a dusky conure who i just fell in love with. the little guy and i formed a strong bond - i have always been a dog person and had no prior experience with birds, but now i love them just as much as dogs. he is so smart and has so much personality...i'm sure i'm preaching to the choir here :)

anyway, this roommate moved out awhile ago, but i still birdsit the little guy at my place about once a month. i've had some sneaking suspicions that he is being left alone at her apartment for many hours a day, and she recently confirmed that he's by himself for over 12 consecutive hours every weekday (she works 2 jobs).

now, my first instinct is to yell, "neglect!" as i said, my background's in dogs, and of course leaving a dog alone for that long for days on end is unconscionable to me. however, i don't know if the same standards apply to birds in general or to certain breeds. any feedback on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

(x-posted to a general bird community)

Does anybody have or know where to find a free to use "conures are love" or "green cheek conures are love" rainbow strip graphic (or whatever they've called) for my lj userinfo page?

Thanks!

Hi guys, haven't been on LJ for quite some time but luckily I came across this group when looking for some information, so hopefully you guys can help me out!

Now i'm usually a reptile kinda guy, having kept various species for over 5 years now, but I recently acquired a lovely little 6 month old Jenday Conure. I'm not sure on the sex yet, and he came from a very well known shop/breeder here in the UK. He's settling in fine, enjoys nothing more than to scream down the house and waking me up in the morning, loves all the stuff in his cage and has plenty to do in there (although he spends the majority of his time out of it).

My question regards some of his behaviour. I'm trying to train him and it seems to be going well. He's slowly learning to 'step up', although not quite enough to lift his foot on command, but i'm working on it. However I do seem to have a problem getting him into his cage. I know he prefers to be out of it, but I was wondering how you guys have managed to train your birds to enjoy their cages? He has plenty to do in there, with various wood chew toys, things to hide in and homemade puzzles for food, but he just doesn't ever want to go back. Oh, and treating him when he does step into the cage doesn't always help as he'll usually just use the food in your hand as a platform to get back on my hand!

Another thing he likes is climbing all over my hands, usually using his beak as support to drag himself around, which as you can imagine can be quite painful. That doesn't bother me so much, but what I need to stop him doing is nipping at my skin. He does what I imagine a lot of parrots do and lick your skin, but he tries to scrape it up with his bottom beak and pinches the skin quite often. He hasn't broken the skin yet but he may. Mostly I need to stop it because he seems to enjoy biting the moles on my arms, which can be quite dangerous. I'm guessing he's quite drawn to them on my arm, and it hurts like heck when he does it, so is there a good way to stop it?

The other thing he'll do is headbutting. I've read a little on here about other people with Conures claiming they do this. He has a tendancy to slowly lift his head and strike objects in his cage, usually the perches, though he'll do it to me out of the cage too. The only concern I have is he sometimes has a tendancy to do this by lifting his wing, putting his face into his 'shoulder' and almost preen himself aggressively before headbutting something. He's currently in the middle or just coming to the end of his moult (I think, judging on when my girlfriend's cockatiel moulted, and the state of his feathers as some are fine, others are still in the 'blood feather' bundles) and the feathers on the edges of his wings on the 'forearm' look a bit grey and ragged. Obviously i'm a bit worried that this could be a very negative behaviour and want to address it as soon as possible.

Any help you guys could give me with either of these matters would be great. I'm a first-time poster here and first-time bird owner so go easy on me!

(I've posted this in the parrotlovers group too but thought this might be a bit more helpful with you guys and gals being into Conures)

Hey everyone, I'm new here, so I thought I'd say hi. My fiancee and I just got a Green Cheeked Conure this past Sunday, and we're looking for name ideas. She's one year old and she's fallowed. Don't have any pictures yet, but she's got a sort of dreamy, cloudy look to her, and we were trying to find a non-human name that would fit. Pretty specific, so it's proving really hard to find a good name. Personally, I don't always like pet names that are overused, but then again, something catchy and cute can be cool too. In any case, I'm open to suggestions :)

We haven't been reaching into the cage, except to move a food bowl in and out. She seems pretty comfortable most of the time, but she'll move away if our hands get close. Of course, I've read that a bird can be extra-agreeable when you first bring it home... Let's hope she's still agreeable in two weeks. We've had several conversations exchanging little conure grunts, and she's bobbed her head at both of us a few times. I think these are good signs - I can't wait until we can take her out and interact more! We're getting rid of all of our teflon cookware, including a brand new stir-fry pan that I really liked :(

She's definitely a female, which brings me to a question: how likely is it that she'll talk, being a one-year old female fallowed GCC? What about whistling? I've been whistling a snippet of Mozart to her - and I tend to whistle and sing alot anyway, being a musician, so hopefully that'll encourage her to vocalize.

I figured to help get some more activity going in this community, I'd take a poll to see what kind of conures members have. Pictures of your birds are welcome also. :D And depending on how well this poll goes maybe I'll do some more in the future/try to think of some more interactive posts.

I took a bunch of pictures of my flock the other day and thought I'd share some of the pictures of my green cheeks with you guys. The wet GCC is Scooter (9yo male) and the baby is Booger (2mths old).




Yaah Yaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!


I think he tried to bathe in his waterdish again


*preen preen preen*


A slightly better picture of Booger. He's kinda hinding in his cage.


Mr. Blue Pants aka Booger!


Booger: "Are you my mother?"


Booger :)


More of Mr. Booger being a baby




*waves*


Back- Booger, Front- Scooter


HII! I'm Mr. Wet-Pants-Toot-Toot!!!




Preen me! Preen me!




Mr. Toot Toot is insanely happy now that he has a cuddle-buddy.

Friday night, i get home, Sammy (9 - 10 year old Nanday Conure) is sitting on the floor of the cage, when he sees me, he pulls himself up onto his perch and perks up. I noticed his poops are very watery, and he is not his usual little bundle of energy. I took the cage apart, cleaned everything, his bowls, etc and put it all back together, and he seemed to be a little better.

Saturday morning, he was on the floor again, so, off we went to the emergency vet. he was put in an incubator, and we watched him for quite some time, and he seemed much much better, so, we decided not to do the bloodwork and I took him home.

Today, Sunday, same thing, bottom of the cage, then, when I was holding him, his wings kind of spasm'd every 20 or 30 seconds, and he was all puffed up. Still with watery poops.

Off we go to the emergency vet again, and this time they did a poop sample and took blood for some tests. It turns out Sammy has some sort of gastro-intestinal issue, and I now have to feed him oral anti-biotics 2 times a day. The prognosis is good, but, wow.

*UPDATE* Sunday night, Sammy was a fluffy lump on the floor of the cage, and Monday morning, the same. I gave Sammy the correct dose of the antibiotics Sunday evening and Monday morning, and (reluctantly) headed out to work. Popped in at lunch time, and Sammy was just sitting on the bottom of the cage, didnt even try to pull up on the perch. Soooo, I spend as much time as I can, scritching and talking to Sammy, then I have to go beck to work. I call a neighbor who loves Sammy (She has a business called Parrot Nannies) and she looked in on him, gave him the afternoon dose of meds, and toldme he actually flew a small lap of the house. I make it home (after cutting an obligation short) and immediately look in on Sammy, and, to my surprise, Sammy is looking a little better, and, sitting right next to HER on the cage floor is an egg! I called the vet, and got instructions as to what to do, and now, Wednesday, Sammy is about 95% back to normal! Or, should I say Sammie! :) I hadn't had Sam DNA sexed, and didnt even think of this, as Sammy is approx 10 years old, and has been with me for 5 years. Wow, I am exhausted just thinking about how worried I was!

The moral of this story is.. birds are really good at hiding their symptoms... what you think may be over-reacting probably isn't.