If you’re wondering why we chose 4 baby sun conures as our new flock members, read this article on why I don’t rescue birds.

We are so excited to welcome our newest flockers, 4 baby sun conures, tonight! That’s right, we get these little rascals tonight from our breeder here in Florida. They are coming from the same breeder we got our blue throated macaw, Jinx, from.

We’ve decided on 2 out of the 4 names for them. The eldest of the clutch will be named “C.J.” which stands for… Comet Junior! Since Comet was the eldest of his clutch AND we call him a giant sun conure because of his hybrid-yellow-dominant colors… we thought it was fitting!

One of the others, depending on personality and mood will be called “Roikey” which is pronounced like it’s spelled “Roy-key”. This is after Linus the umbrella cockatoo featured in our Taming Training and Tricks series. This is something he’d say every so often that meant to us, “uh huh, I agree”. He’d say it so clearly sometimes and we’d have no idea where he learned it.

That, and it’s so original. I don’t think anyone has an animal named Roikey.

As for the two other names, we’d love your help! We plan on video taping lots of our daily interactions with these guys and we should know their sexes in about 7-10 days. So that will definitely help. Some names we’ve been tossing around are “Chaos” for any trouble makers in the group… and “Digit” for the smallest/youngest one possibly but we haven’t decided we like those names for sure yet and would love some suggestions! Watch out for our ConureTV webisodes of raising these little guys and training them for our show in Silverwood, along with of course… freeflight!
- Birdtricks.com

Related links:

• Our freeflight course
• Silverwood Theme Park contract

Blue fronted amazon

Q:  My green cheek conure bites me (or tries to) every time I take her out of her cage. It’s like she’s afraid of my hands. When she is out, she loves for me to play with her and doesn’t mind my hands at all. My sun conure steps right up everytime. What can I do to fix this problem?
-Jennifer S., Billings, MO

A:  It sounds to me like you have a bird that is not fearful of hands at all but is territorial and objects to having hands in (and probably around) her cage. Try to see her envoronment from her standpoint as a bird, remembering that her cage is her nest-site and home.

In the wild, a bird will fiercely defend the nest and its surrounding areas to ward off other pilfering birds that would like to steal her eggs and young, or take ownership of her nest for its own use.  This innate drive to protect her territory keeps her always on guard and she will run off anything that is foreign to her environment.

Mitred conure

Some species tend to be more territorial than others – conures are one of those species. In captivity, this drive is present and can be a powerful trait in a bird as an individual regardless of species. This behavior is further escalated during times when our birds are affected by breeding urges – in the spring, and again in the fall to a lesser degree.

You need to understand that your green cheek conure’s aggressiveness is not directed toward you on a personal level. She is merely carrying out her duties. It is not a “bad” behavior – it is a “bird” behavior. Try to be forgiving and acknowledge that this is her nature as an individual, and it may never change.

Blue mutation amazon

While you must respect that when your hands are in her cage they are regarded as invaders that make her feel threatened and insecure, you have to find a way to retrieve her when necessary without being injured. In the case of a fire, you must know that you can move her to safety.

Some birds will gladly step up onto a hand-held perch or wood dowel from inside their cages. And there is always the old standby: a towel wrapped around the hand the wrist to protect you from the inevitable bite. Be sure that your green cheek is watching as your sun steps ageeably onto your hand. Let him be the role model for desired behaviors.

I know you were looking for a way to fix this problem, but there isn’t really a “problem” to fix. Your bird is simply pursuing what comes to her instinctively. Over time, and with age, your bird might relax her standards and drop the guard dog routine. In the meantime, enjoy her cooperation and pleasantness while she is out of her cage and let her be proud and strong inside of it. I think this is a fair compromise.

Cockatiel

Q: I am thinking of getting a quaker parrot. Can I put him in the same cage with my cockatiel?
–Linda L., Minot, ND

A: This is just not a good idea. I have both species of birds and find that I have to watch the interaction between both closely even when they are in a common play area. Although they appear to be similar in size, the body type of the quaker is stockier, the beak larger and the personality more aggressive. The quaker is a more powerful bird than the cockatiel.

Even in cases where the birds seem to get along well, you have to consider the possibility that one day there might be an altercation between the two. The more delicate of the two birds, the cockatiel, would be the likely loser.  And being confined in a cage, where there is no possibility of escape, things could get ugly, or worse.

It is inadvisable to put two birds of different sizes together in close proximity at all. Never make the assumption that you know your birds well enough to feel certain that neither would cause an incident. I promise you that you do not know your bird that well. None of us do. A bird regards and responds to its environment differently than we do as humans. We don’t now, and perhaps never will, fully understand their nature.

Quaker

When I first came to Orlando, I introduced my goffins cockatoo, Theo, to the Womach’s rosebreasted cockatoos and african grey. Theo is smaller than than the other birds and is a bit timid in personality. Sweet and gentle Theo has never bitten anyone, ever – she’s a total marshmallow, and I expected her to come running to me for protection. Imagine my surprise when SHE was the aggressor with the larger birds and had no issues with telling THEM how things were going to be. The Womach birds just rolled their eyes and went about their business.

Parrots of the same species sometimes squabble, just like humans do, and often will simply opt to move away from each other. Different species have different levels of aggression and territorialism and might always regard another species in its cage as an invader. Just as wild birds run off other species that come too close to their nesting site, so might a captive bird.  It isn’t worth the risk.

Umbrella cockatoos

My birds don’t talk a lot, with the exception of Libby, my quaker, who won’t shut up. The problem is, she only has one thing to say, and says it over and over until I finally have to leave the room having run out of ways to respond to “How ya doin’?”.  Still, every once in a while, one of them will come with a doozie.

I used to come home from work everyday to a familiar: “Hi. How doin’?” from Linus, my umbrella cockatoo. Now it has become: “Hi birrrrd!”, sometimes stretching the “R’s” out for several seconds. I don’t have any idea where this came from.  I have never called him “bird”. I imagine I should be flattered and feel like a real, card carrying member of the flock. The good news is that this phrase doesn’t get Libby off and running with hers.

Linus is a good bird, but we have experienced a couple of rough patches. He is a bit edgy at times, and I am careful to approach him appropriately in certain situations. He has always been a little nesty, so when he found his way into the corner or his paper bag I would reach carefully for him and say “Be a good boy. Don’t bite me.” During one period, when he was being down right testy, I found myself saying: “Be a good boy. Don’t you bite me.” more often. One night I reached for him and said: “Be a good boy.” and he said “Bite me.”  You have to love a bird that issues his warnings verbally.

quaker parrot

I had been working with Libby on animal sounds some time ago.  I would say: “What’s a kitty say?”, and she would respond with an ear piercing “meow”.  She made the cutest croaking sound when asked: “What’s a froggie say?”. We were currently working on ‘rooster’ when I decided to see how Linus would do with the same training.

It was cage cleaning day and I stuck him in a carrier while I cleaned and I worked with him on animal sounds. He loved it when I shouted ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’. The carrier would shake from him bouncing up and down, but he wouldn’t repeat anything back. When I had put him back in his cage and was working on Theo’s, he shouted ‘cock-a-too-doo” and I almost fell over. Of course, he didn’t say it again and probably never will, but boy was it funny!

Blue and gold macaws

I think my favorite ever story comes compliments of two blue and gold macaws owned by a young married couple I knew in Austin. I was visiting with them in their kitchen and the birds were on a huge playstand that occupied, well, most of the room.  The house rules were that while the birds were in the kitchen, the dogs weren’t allowed in, and vice versa.The dogs were napping on the sofa in the living room. Birds being birds, however, the macaws were not to fond of following rules. They had devised their own little game.

One bird would, in the wife’s voice, call the dogs to the kitchen by name: “Here Trixie! Here Dingo!” The other bird, in the husband’s voice would yell at them to get out: “BAD DOGS!”. They had the dogs running back and forth for about 30 minutes. The owners just shook their heads while I laughed uncontrollably. Apparently, this goes on frequently.
What are some of your favorite stories?

I got this question sent in from Reza and Bita Azimi, about how to get their Sun Conure to stop chewing up their shirts, and thought it would apply to enough people to post it here:

They wrote…

We have 6 parrots. 5 cockatiels (they are one family-parents and 3 kids), and 1 sun conure. It is understandable that our conure is a little lonely and maybe feels left out of that family. He literally glues himself onto us. We have no problem with that. However, lately (since 2 months ago) he has started a habit of chewing on all of our clothes. He is about 3 1/2 to 4 years old and we don’t think he is too bored. He gets tons of attention from us (he demands it!) and he has toys in and on his cage and he has lots of treats and music and TV, etc etc.

All of our birds have grown their wing feathers and freely fly around the house. That is why our conure is able to reach us and never leave our shirts. If we try to be without our tops, he will just slide down to the pants!!!

He will not play with any other “toys” that we provide for him away from his cage…. not interested.
We love to have him join us on our shoulders/fingers during our daily activities at home, but how can we stop him from his destructive chewing habit? We almost have no shirts left and will have to start buying monthly supplies of house shirts.

P.s. We are thinking of adopting him a female sun conure companion (which he may or may not get along with), but that is not going to be very soon.

Any input will be greatly appreciated. Or if you can show us a link on your website, we will appreciate that as well.

Sincerely,

Reza and Bita Azimi

>My Thoughts:

First off, way to go on not clipping your bird’s wings. It gives them such a great outlet for all their extra pent up energy, and makes them so much easier to live with. I’ve noticed that after letting my birds do some flying around the house (the ones who can) they are so much more mellow once they get that energy burst out of their system.

But as for your question about chewing, I have two suggestions.

Suggestion #1) Force your bird to eat out of Food Finding Toys

We talk a LOT about Food Finding Toys in our Total Parrot Transformation Seminar DVD series, because it gives you a way to get your bird, even a bird who doesn’t play with toys, to get his God given “Foraging Fix” out of his system.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but one thing I’ve noticed with my birds after all these years is that they seem to live out every day in two mental states. They are either actively exploring or eating, or they are resting ie. roosting. And they tend to go into their resting states ONLY after they’ve had their flying, foraging and exploring fix for the day.

In the wild they tend to spend 6-8 hours a day looking for food, and the rest of the time just sitting there.

So when you ask me about how to fix your Sun Conure’s shirt chewing habit, the first thing that comes to mind is that he wouldn’t be eating your shirt if he’d already had his Foraging Fix.

Luckily, even though you say your bird doesn’t like to play with toys, Food Finding toys are a way to MAKE your bird play with toys WHILE giving him his “Foraging Fix”.

Here’s a post I did a while back on how you can use our Food Finding toys to do this with your own bird, it’s called: Taking A Knife To Your Bird Toys

Suggestion #2) If suggestion one doesn’t completely eliminate your birds shirt chewing habit, you should resort to my next favorite training technique: Giving Permission To Misbehave.

Giving your bird permission to misbehave is a training principle where we know the bird is going to do something we don’t want him to do, but instead of trying to stop him, we change his environment so that it doesn’t bother us to have him misbehaving.

In the case with shirt chewing, what I’ve done most recently, when raising two blue and gold macaws for a client of mine was to wear a devise that I could throw over my head that covered my shoulders (for pooping), and that also had little clips that I could hang toys off of.

Quickly throwing this little shawl over my head when I was with my blue and gold macaws, and hanging little bells and trinkets on it, gave the birds something to chew on for a good 30 minutes instead of me. (baby macaws love earlobes, and moles on my neck This worked perfectly for these baby blue and gold’s because they were still being hand fed and Foraging, or Food Finding toys were out of the option. So the only way I could satisfy their Foraging Fix was with this strategy. Plus, after just 20-30 minutes of letting them chew on the toys, they got their fix and would sit calmly for hours… it worked perfectly.

If you’d like more suggestions about how to use this Giving Permission To Misbehave Concept in other areas of your bird’s life, you should check out our Seminar DVD Series.

Hope this helps stop your Conure’s shirt chewing!

Camelot Macaw, Blue Throated Macaw

About six years ago, I suffered the loss of my dear, wonderful cockatoo, Abu.  I was reeling for months following her unexpected death. I had considered getting another bird, but was still in that place where it hurt too much to think about it and it seemed somehow disrespectful to her memory to “replace” her so quickly.
During that period of time, my daughter and Jamie knew each other from online.  It turns out Jamie and Dave were looking for a good home for their umbrella cockatoo, and my daughter convinced them that I could provide such a home. From my end, I readied myself to take the plunge again. It was beginning to feel too quiet around the house with just the cockatiels and myself.  Enter Linus.

Umbrella Cockatoo

When Linus came to Austin to be my new roommate, I was living in a small apartment. Having had experience with cockatoos, and living with one for so long, I knew they were not good apartment birds. I was not expecting, however, that Linus would scream from morning until night for the next four months. It was not a fun time and I was longing for that too quiet house again. I can say now that Linus has turned into such an affectionate and cherished companion that it was all worth every effort, but it wasn’t easy.
I thought I would share some tips with you about how to ready yourself and the neighbors for the arrival of a potentially loud bird. No matter what species you bring home, and regardless of their level of difficulty in handling this new experience, birds make noise. Period. It’s best that everyone be prepared.
Before Linus came to Austin, I began preparing my neighbors. I spoke to everyone in the immediate area, especially those with walls connecting to my apartment. I let them know that there would be an excess of noise coming from my place for a while and implored them to be understanding. I explained how emotional and sensitive parrots were and that they needed extra care and consideration in these circumstances.  Everyone seemed to be on board.

Rose Breasted Cockatoos and African Grey

The night that Linus arrived, I took him around to meet the neighbors so they could put a cute face to the new sounds coming from my apartment. He couldn’t have been more charming and he made several new friends on his first night here. It’s a good thing I did this that very night because as of the next day it was months before Linus was handleable again. He was crazy angry about his new living arrangements – and loud.  Very loud.  And angry.  Did I say that already?
As much as Linus had endeared himself to the neighbors, I knew patience was going to run out. So I rushed to cover those bases by purchasing gift cards to the local cinemas and giving them to my neighbors as a form of bribery. I wrote a note of thanks to each of them and explained that this transition was proving to be more difficult for Linus than was anticipated. I gave them the option of seeing a movie or two on me if things got too loud.  Also, it’s hard for someone to complain once they have accepted a gift in exchange for their silence. Sneaky? Yes. Effective? Very.

Umbrella Cockatoo

After I was successful with this approach, I posted it on a number of bird boards and It was used often by readers there facing similar dilemmas.  Gratefully, every new bird you bring home isn’t going to terrorize you in the same special way Linus did me. But some birds, even the smaller ones, seem to have penetrating or shrill calls that can be annoying not only to your neighbors, but to those in your own household. Conures seem to have this knack.
There are a few things you can use to dampen the bird sounds in your home:
Fabric:  Drapery, curtains or wall tapestries can cut down on a huge amount of noise that travels inside the house or through the walls.
Carpet:  This works in the same way as fabric. Noises that would normally bounce from wall to wall, or floor to ceiling, can be disrupted and absorbed by carpet.
Furniture: The emptier a room, the noisier it is. Filling a room up with stuff will dampen sound.
Plants: I don’t have an explanation for why these work well. But they do.  I guess they qualify as stuff.
Professional soundproofing:  This may be going too far in some households, but it is an option, albeit an expensive one.

Camelot Macaws

In the wrong circumstances, an angry neighbor can cause of you to have to part with your beloved bird.  There are laws governing how much noise can emanate from your house and yard.  Know and understand the species of bird you are planning to bring into your home (and neighborhood), and prepare ahead of time.