Choosing a conure

[Misty15]

So I am looking at getting a new parrot (I have a lovebird) and have settled on conures as the right species. I am looking at green cheeks, blue crowns, and half moon conures. Money, space, and noise aren't issues although I could not deal with the sun/Jenday/nayday shrieks. My main criteria is cuddliness although i know everything depends on individual birds. I have some experience with GCCs and like the bigger birds a little more. How do Blue crowns and half moons compare to each other noise wise and cuddliness wise?

 

[weco]

Being Aratingas, both the blue crown & the half-moons are larger than the green cheeks and both can be louder than GCCs.....

The half-moon or orange-front is similar ti the peach-faced, except that the peach-faced will ha a black/dark-grey beak that looks more pronounced, like a macaw or even a cockatoo beak.....

Your best option would be to find breeders or sellers that will let you go interact with the different species & make your decision from there.....

 

[Misty15]

Thanks! Trying to find breeders in southern CA is a pain! Does anyone know of any conure breeders?

 

[JamesC]

Blue Crowns can be cuddly. My Tootsie leans against my arm and preens the hairs until she usually dozes off. But unfortunately she can be a very noisy bird. Of my three she is by far the biggest noise maker. My other Blue Crown Rosco is a rescue so he is not very hands on. I can pick him up sometimes but he has a fear of hands so no cuddles from him. He does fly over to visit me from time to time, though. I think that most of his noise is him responding to Tootsie. Neither of them makes any real shrill shrieks that hurt the ears. But they do have plenty of capacity for volume.

Although they are overwhelming the microphone in my phone, this is a good example of Blue Crowns "singing". They don't seem to do it too often, though. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n82pHloOcx8]Tootsie and Rosco make noise! - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Katiejayne]

My green cheek is very cuddly she likes to lay her bk against me and sit in my hand having cuddles. Also she doesn't really make noise unless I am speaking to her.

 

[Birdman666]

Agreed. Green cheeks are the least noisy, and one of the cuddliest of the bunch if properly socialized...

And you still get that playful "Honey I shrunk the macaw" personality!

The biggest thing with all conures is that they are pair bond birds. If you allow them to overbond with one person, then they will tend to bite others later in life.

Socialization is the most important issue with these guys.

 

[psittac]

I have a green cheek that I got 5 years ago while working at petco. We got 4 birds in and I had a chance to interact with all of them. One was not loving at all and would bite me, another I don't remember and the last two were my choices. My first choice was sold before I got there and I got my bird, Petrie. When ever I wonder what if I got the other one I quickly realize that this was the bird I was meant to get.

I don't have experience with conures other then green cheeks and sun conures and I have to say my gc is perfect, she comes out of the cage and sits on my shoulder or under my shirt. She is never more then an arms reach from me. I would highly recommend one but don't know other species.

A note on sun conures even though you don't want one. We had one that came from another store and it had bonded to an employee there, when we got the bird it hated everyone and would bite. Day after day I would slowly work with it and eventually got it to step up and socialize, I backed off and let another coworker bond with it and after a while it sold. I couldn't handle the noise of a sun conure but they seam nice, more of a bird that wants to do it's own thing at least at times from my experience.

Another thought is that my bird is very needy, every time I put her in the cage to go to the bathroom, go outside to smoke, or do anything longer then a minute she lets me know that i'm not paying attention to her and screams. I don't know if it's related to moving out 10mo ago or she was always this way, but I notice it a lot more now because my room was in the basement and I couldn't hear her as much. She went through a terrible two phase where she screamed a lot but she grew out of it along with some training. I would turn off her light at first, then put a blanket over her cage and let her scream her head off. When she quieted down I would take her out. I've gone back to the blanket trick but she is quiet right away and I don't think is learning from it anymore. If I'm in the same room she's fine, but out of sight and she screams.