How to introduce conures?!?

[HeatherG]

Interested to see how this plays out. A parrot expert told me yesterday that if conures bond to each other then they gonna distance their human. Or if they don't bond to each other, they might fight. Hope she is wrong.

I think this is likely true.

 

[kme3388]

Interested to see how this plays out. A parrot expert told me yesterday that if conures bond to each other then they gonna distance their human. Or if they don't bond to each other, they might fight. Hope she is wrong.

I've heard the same thing. So both conures have been good with myself, and my husband. They both step up, and even love their head scratches still. My Jenday Kiwi does attack Charlie the Sun if he is on my person. She doesn't like Charlie on myself, or my husband. Other then this she is no longer attacking him. I wanted to take on another conure because I know how social conures truly are. I thought it would be healthier for Kiwi to have a friend, and someone to play with all day long. I do let them out together for hours. I just open their cage doors, and Kiwi climbs to Charlies cage, and just hangs out there until she has to go back to her cage. I am hoping eventually I can have them both in one cage. I'm not rushing it though.

 

[kme3388]

Charlie the Sun Conure is now 105 grams. It’s up from his 98 grams the day I got him. All he eats is sunflower seeds out of the seed mix bag he came with. I’ve tried chop, and different fruits/veggies with no luck. This little guy just loves his sunflower seeds.

Has anyone ran into these issues with conures? Any suggestion’s?

 

[zERo]

Charlie the Sun Conure is now 105 grams. It’s up from his 98 grams the day I got him. All he eats is sunflower seeds out of the seed mix bag he came with. I’ve tried chop, and different fruits/veggies with no luck. This little guy just loves his sunflower seeds.

Has anyone ran into these issues with conures? Any suggestion’s?

It can be pretty tough getting birds to stop eating something they've been eating their whole lives.
With my Gcc I found lots of success in making birdie bread, he just loves it.
Something else you might try, get one of those stainless steel skewers made for putting veggies on for birds, put lots of chunks of different veggies and fruit, you could insert sunflower seeds into the veg/fruit and in order to get them he's going to have to taste the good stuff.
Hope this helps

 

[kme3388]

Charlie is eating pellets, or at least crunching them up/playing with them. This is a huge improvement. His bowels are now a bright lime green color. Does anyone know if this is normal when transferring to pellets? I don’t recall this with my other conure. It’s been awhile though.

 

[ravvlet]

I know that bright green stool can be associated with liver issues or chlamydiosis, I don’t remember if you’d said you already had testing done at the vet though!

Have you tried shelling the sunflowers and running them in a food processor with the pellets? A coarse chop so that they can smell the seeds in the mix but will end up eating some of the pellet with it.

 

[kme3388]

I know Charlie’s previous owners said they brought him to the vet, and he was in good health. My vet was out of town, and currently has covid. She also is completely backed up, and isn’t accepting new clients. So Charlie will have to wait a bit. Here’s a photo of what I’m talking about…

 

[ravvlet]

Huh, that is really green but it doesn’t look terribly abnormal. Kirby has green poops like that sometimes.

I mean, the number of times I’ve googled their poop has to be in the hundreds by now!

It somewhat resembles the “varied diet” in the picture. I’d keep an eye on it and see if anything else changes or if it’s consistent with his diet.

 

[kme3388]

Charlie is still doing really well. He is now completely eating pellets. He still hasn’t completely bonded to myself, or my husband. I could tell that he was very attached to his previous owner as he looked for him for a few weeks after I got him. Charlie is still bickering with Kiwi now, and then. They still aren’t in the same cage, but they do hang out on top of Charlie’s cage together.

 

[kme3388]

They definitely do keep their distance from one another still. They never eat out of the same bowl at the same time… however them being on top of Charlie’s cage not arguing is a good start!

 

[kme3388]

Conure young love!

 

[kme3388]

We wanted to make an aviary but had issues stabilizing it. We were using stainless steel chicken wire, and plexiglass. It failed, so we ended up buying the conures a new cage online. There is a divider if need be.

They are doing great together!!!! They follow each other around the cage all day. They both fly around this cage I just got.

I will admit I’m worried about babies as I don’t want babies. Suns & Jenday’s can mate, and have babies. I just couldn’t keep them in 2 separate cages anymore. They just sat there & screamed. It’s been a lot more quiet since I put them together (disclaimer they are still loud they just don’t scream as often just encase someone reads this thinking they can get 2 conures, and then they are quiet).

 

[Thechoplady]

Agree, definitely not putting the 2 in the same cage / room at the start.
And always supervise them when they are out of the cage at the same time. Especially during breeding seasons.
You won't regret getting a sun conure if you know how to train it out of screaming. Mine was a screamer and is now quiet. It's sad to see sun conures are being rehomed quite a lot on Kijiji.

How did you go about training your sun not to scream? It it just not giving it attention when it screams or is there something more?