Was your conure a planned or unplanned purchase?

[kiwiS]

Another roped-in pet store customer here. Ran in one day to get some teeth brushing supplies for my dog and Kiwi practically adopted me on the spot. Was a bit of a bumpy start, lots of uncertainty, but with help and advice from folks on this forum, and a couple of dog trainers and bird breeders I stuck to it, and am so glad I did!

 

[MonicaMc]

The majority of my birds have been unplanned!

I never planned on being a bird owner. I never planned to own budgies, a lovebird or grass parakeets. Once I had budgies (most of them unplanned), I did plan on getting cockatiels, but I never planned on getting the 8 cockatiels that I've cared for. My conures were mostly unplanned.


When I got Noel, at the time I had a small flock of budgies and a cockatiel that I had had for a month and a half (she being a gift to me). It was a few days before Christmas and someone came by giving food to some families. She saw that my family had budgies, then she saw Casey (the tiel) and asked us if we wanted another bird. Said yes, so she left, went to her house and brought back a bedraggled conure that she had had for 5 or 6 years and didn't know what it was! She told us he was either a red masked or a "mit-red". It took me a few months of research to decide that my new conure, Noel, was in fact a cherry head (aka red masked). Back then, information was limited and often wrong, so it was hard to determine for sure what he was.

Noel was never a hands on bird and he didn't seem to act like any normal conure, so I planned on getting another cherry head some day but I didn't know from where or when. That is, until someone on another forum offered me a cherry head because he did not fit into her flock, and she was just fostering him anyway. He sounded like what I was looking for, so I agreed to take him! Only, when I got to her house, I discovered he was a mitred ('my-turd' ) and not a cherry head. For the three years that I had Charlie (mitred) and Noel, they never did get along! I did see Noel sometimes copy Charlie, and Charlie wanted to preen Noel but they were complete opposites and never truly got along.

Noel ended up passing away from his health problems and I was left with Charlie. It didn't feel right only having one conure so I had planned on getting another conure someday. Again, no plans on when or anything, only someday. Charlie was an only bird for 3 years. I then came across a member on another forum that was fostering a red throated conure (I remember when she took the RTC in) and I tentatively left a message. We talked, and she even tried to get me to consider a different bird (a cherry head, actually!), but I kind of already commited myself to the RTC (I'm fascinated with the different red headed conure species!) and she was kind of what I was looking for. Jayde has actually turned out to be even more amazing than I thought, even though I knew she was going to take work before I adopted her! She was pretty much hands off and couldn't be handled!



Now that I have two conures, and neither one a cherry head, I'd still love to have a third conure, that being a cherry head! And I'm kind of more interested in a parent raised bird rather than hand raised. Having said that, I was offered another RTC! I have had to turn the little guy down as I'm not yet prepared for a third conure, but atm we are hoping that his current owner wont have to rehome him!