Since the loss of my 10 year-old cockatiel some weeks ago, I recently came across the opportunity to adopt a Blue-Crowned Conure. It had been my "dream" since I saw the film Paulie as a kid and now, being 22 years old, I thought I could not let such occasion pass considering that I also wanted an adult parrot.
An acquaintance told me that she knew a woman who was selling her 3 year-old conure because she was kind of tired of it. I went to the woman's small apartment and was surprised to see that she kept a lot of birds in different dirty cages in her living room. The floor was full of seeds everywhere, the television was too loud and a labrador wouldn't stop barking. I inmediatly spoted Birdy (I never call him by his name to leave the past behind) in a cage too small even for a cockatiel. The woman's daughter was putting her fingers through the cage's bars and he was chasing after her to bite her, very aggressively. She told me that, since very young, the bird had always been that grumpy and aggressive and, the most important, that he never learned to fly.
The woman chased him with a towel without any respect, shouting at the bird because he was trying to bite her (I told her a few times to be gentle with the bird since I could not stand such brutality quietly) until she was able to pretty much throw him into my carrier. I gave her the money (she wanted 100 dolars to get rid of him, as she said) and I left the place a bit shocked.
While still on the train, I would gently murmur to him with a high pitched voice and he seemed to calm down. I slowly showed him my fingers, bit by bit, and after a couple of hard bites (I did not react nor withdraw) he totally stoped biting. He would not even try. At home and within his aviary he acctepted treats from my fingers and never intended to bite anymore.
He was not "wild" (I don't actually think him to be grumpy nor aggressive), but he was never taught any of the basics, not even to step up, not even on a perch. He wouldn't even approach the perch and what I firstly thought was fear, I understood was actually insecurity of falling down (he always checks that the perches are steady with his beak before going on them).
I started his training the next day very very gently and rewarded any minimum effort, at the same time trying to be as patient as I could and not to insist on him too much, and after one hour, the first training session, he would step up on the perch fearless, but still rejects the fingers, hands and arms (I got him past thursday 5th).
Thanks for reading! I came here to ask for tips and advises to bond with him, and mostly on how to deal and help him with the fact that he cannot fly (I'm clueless since all of my birds until now were always flighted and I'm against clipping without a good reason). His cage is in my bedroom and we're much of the day together, since I'm a student and I am the 70% of the day in my bedroom studying.
Note: I did not target trained him and I don't think I will because I do not understand how the stick and clipper thing works, and I'm not sure I will make the bird understand it if I, myself, can't. All of my birds have always been perfectly trained though, in step up, recall, out-door freeflight and even roll back with my Quaker parrot (he does not step up, he flies and lands on my hand instead).
Any help and feedback will be welcomed!
Here a picture of him on his favorite perch:
