New Green Cheek Conure

[Tallis22]

Hi everyone!
I am a first time user and a first time parrot owner. I have owned budgies and cockatiels before but a week and a bit ago I bought my first conure. Ollie is a turquoise green cheek and I don't have many concerns as such, I just want to know I'm doing things right, so bare with my rambling!

So far he has been great, he's a tad beaky but it has only hurt once or twice, it's always very gentle and he's never drawn blood so it doesn't bother me at all. But, when he is cranky he will bite my fingers. Afain, it doesn't hurt but I have been punishing him. Is this okay? The breeder told me to flick him hard on the beak and tell him not to bite. I think that's a bit forceful so I've been tapping his head with my finger and sternly saying 'no biting'. If he continues 2-3 more times he gets a time out with his sheet covering the cage. What are your thoughts on this? Will it be effective training? Also, he seems to only get cranky at night, never during the day. I don't wake him; he comes out on his own accord but he just gets grumpy.

He loves to follow me around the house during the day and I've been told by some people not to allow him on my shoulder but the breeder said he's okay on the shoulder just not the head. He really loves being on my shoulder, and he never bites or yells when he's up there. What are your thoughts on this?

Also, I need opinions: seed or pellets? He's not too fussed on fruit and veg but I sTill replace it each day. Currently he's on a mixed seed diet. He LOVES sunflower seeds, he'd ditch me for A dish of them any day.

One more question - Any tips on toilet training? I've been saying 'go bathroom' each time he does his business. When I feel like he is about to go I take him to the cage and hold him inside and say the phrase. All he does is scramble back up my arm as if to say 'no I don't wanna go to bed!'

Overall he's a beautiful little fella. He already knows how to high five (anything for those precious sunflower seeds) and he's beautifully quiet - only screeching when he hears the lorikeets outside. I know this is a lot of dribble but I just want to know I'm taking care of him properly. I live alone and I'm only 17 so any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Wolf]

No ! No! Never punish your bird, no beak flicks or anything of this nature ever. A green Cheek Conure is one of the sweetest little parrots that you can find, They are more aggressive than cockatiels, but that doesn't say much.
Everything that you do with this bird requires patience, they are fast learners, but can be a mite beaky as this is how they learn about the world around them. You want to discourage biting, but not the beaking. To do this just tell the bird " no bite" or something similar and set it down for a few minutes. You may need to repeat this as needed but this is all that you will ever need to do with this.
Toilet training? Don't do it! Just keep a small amount of tissue for cleaning up poops which he will do on an average of every 15 minutes, give or take. You can hold him over paper or a trash can or where ever you would prefer him to poop, but do it based on his signals which you will learn, the time since last poop, but never give any cue to go with it. A bird that is potty trained will hold the poops in and this can easily cause blockages in their digestive tract requiring expensive and life threatening surgery that should be totally unnecessary.
I don't let my birds on my head, but the only reason why I don't is that they leave these little poops behind, which I prefer they didn't. Other than this they can climb around anywhere they want on me.
I would not feed him any sunflower seeds as part of his regular food, reserve them for treats and any time that you need to use a little bribery with him.
He gets tired and cranky as the evening draws near as they normally go to sleep at dark.
These are just the basic and much shortened version of my answers, without my usual detail. Now lets start over with a few things that should help you.
You just brought this bird home and thank you for getting him away from this breeder, who should not be allowed near a bird. But regardless of how I feel Ollie, lost everything that he was familiar with and felt safe with and moved in with you, who are a strange giant that he doesn't yet know or trust, in a new and potentially dangerous environment and he is all alone without any protection from his flock. This is a time of grieving for what he lost as well as adapting to his new environment and you, so it is a very stressful time for him.
Training is fun and a very interesting thing to do with him, especially with him being such a quick learner. but to be honest it is not what he needs from you at this time, for this reason I would back off on the training for the entire first month and concentrate on his needs.
Right now, Ollie needs a friend, someone to reassure him as well as encourage him. This is the ideal time for you to learn about him and how he communicates to you the things that he wants and needs. He will let you know when he is scared, not feeling well as well as when he is happy and content and when he is ready to try new things. There is so much that he has to tell you, but you have to learn to listen not just with your ears, but with your eyes as well as a large portion of his natural communication is done through body language. Please read this http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww15eii.htm It is about their body language.
Spend as much time with him as you can talking and singing with him and learning his body language. Just hang out with him and allow him some time to get to know you and to begin to trust you. Provide time for him to explore his new environment, after you bird proof it. After the first month you can start with training once or twice a day for up to 15 minutes each time. Right now you need to work on bonding and trust as these will provide the basis for all that can be in your relationship.

[Wolf]

I meant to answer your question concerning diet in the last post, but failed to do so, so I am baaack.
I am not a fan of pellets and I do not use them for my birds. There is a lot of conflicting information about the use of pellets. Many vets recommend the feeding of pellets as they have learned that many of their clients don't know enough about avian nutrition and want to ensure that their patients, the birds, have at least a minimum level of balanced nutrition, and not because pellets are that great of a food. I will admit that there has been considerable improvements in the formulation of these pelleted diets, but I can do much better for my birds with more natural ingredients than those found in pellets.
Seeds are not a bad source of food for your bird, but not in the manner that they usually get fed to our birds. When seeds are used daily and free choice, meaning they are always available they can cause heart disease, kidney disease and liver disease all of which can be fatal to your bird. Birds naturally eat seeds as part of their diets, but it is usually the unripe seeds that are high in moisture and they are only available for parts of the year. Since we feed them daily and all year long, we have to be careful to only give them limited portions of them and this is best done by feeding them for the birds dinner and then removing them when the bird goes to sleep for the night.
Your bird needs a diet that is high in whole grains, a large variety of both fresh and cooked vegetables, fresh fruit and cooked legumes as well as a variety of leafy greens. These items should provide most of your birds diet whether you feed seeds or pellets as a part of their diet. These are the foods that need to be available at all times during the day for your bird, not seeds or pellets.

[jane19]

Haha my conures breeder said exactly the same thing about biting/beaking! But I ignored it and let my bird chew on anything as long as it's safe, so he grows up into a non-bitey bird. Since he's done all the biting/beaking he likes there's no hard feelings. I guess that's how things work.

My birds are allowed on my head and shoulders. They rarely poop on me. When they do it's intentional.

Seed is okay if they don't live in a cage. You still need to feed him veggies fruits and beans. I don't feed them things I won't eat myself, such as pellets.

Toilet training -- when he looks like he is about to go at an undesired place, move him to an approved spot. My conure never pooped at where he sleeps, but it's probably just his thing.

High five-- sometimes when they do that, it's a defensive gesture. You can still train high five though. Just keep their body language in mind.

[Wolf]

Seed has nothing to do with whether a bird lives with or without a cage, although the bird will probably get more exercise if it lives cage free. You statement that seed is ok if they live cage free is about the same as saying fatty food is ok if you don't live in a house. The issue with seeds is that it is too high in protein and fat which causes fatty liver disease, kidney disease and heart disease.
Toilet training is not recommended because if the bird can't get to the toilet spot it will hold the poop and this can cause blockages that require life threatening surgery to fix., all because someone didn't want to clean up a little poop.

[liz]

NO PUNISHMENT.
NO BIRD ON THE HEAD you have no idea what food he took up there with him.
NO YELLING you can praise him with a happy voice or correct him with a stern one.

Beaking is to investigate. Mine even use their tongues. It really feels weird to have an ear lob in an Amazon's mouth and feel it flip with it's tongue.
Biting is when it hurts like hell and you see blood. You are not aloud to yell then either. You can say no bite or ouch.
Calmly put the bird down and go to another room to scream.

[Tallis22]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies!

I will stop tapping Ollie when he bites now, it seems like it's not a very good thing to do. I have never punished Ollie for beaking, it's just when he's cranky and decides to nip. I'm fairly certain it's when he's cranky because it's accompanied by an angry squawk, a dip of the head and this sort of dodge & duck love (which is actually a little funny.) new tactic: does the 'earthquake effect' work?

I feel as if we've bonded well already, I only have a little home that is pretty well bird-proofed, and he enjoys following me EVERYWHERE. if I'm on the couch he'll sit on my shoulder, if I'm doing the dishes he will sit on the dish rack beside me and act like an acrobat, if I'm having breakfast he will gladly walk little birdy-tracks of tomato sauce across the table.

In the morning when I wake up he goes insane wanting to get out. He runs around squawking and will hop on my finger as quick as possible. I generally feel as if he likes being with me. With the high five trick - I'm fairly certain it's not a defensive gesture. At first I was just putting my finger in front of him and when he went to step up I'd praise him with a sunflower seed. Now I just point my fingertip towards his foot and he'll give it a tap.

The only thing I'm puzzled about is his night time antics. He'll carry on and beg to come out but then he'll get cranky and start biting! Is he just tired?

He did come to me very dirty, he was only 8 weeks old and he didn't know step up, he'd always been grabbed around the wings. Even though he may have had a rocky start I feel like he's making great progress

[Wolf]

You don't need to do this earthquake effect thing as from your description of events it probably won't work any way. Maybe things will change in the future to where you may need it.
His antics at night time are probably due to your lighting. turn the light off and let it start getting darker naturally and put him in the cage before dark and let him drift off to sleep and then keep the lights low and/ or cover him so that it is dark enough and quiet enough for him to sleep.

[jane19]

Seed has nothing to do with whether a bird lives with or without a cage, although the bird will probably get more exercise if it lives cage free. You statement that seed is ok if they live cage free is about the same as saying fatty food is ok if you don't live in a house. The issue with seeds is that it is too high in protein and fat which causes fatty liver disease, kidney disease and heart disease.
Toilet training is not recommended because if the bird can't get to the toilet spot it will hold the poop and this can cause blockages that require life threatening surgery to fix., all because someone didn't want to clean up a little poop.

I need to correct myself: if your bird is flighted and spend at least 8 hours a day flying around a large space (say, and area of an average house for small to medium-sized birds), it is okay to provide energy rich food when they need it. Flying is high energy consuming activity. It is the same if you start to do intense body work-out 4 hours+ a day, you would eat more protein and fat-containing foods to support your activity and build/maintain muscles. Problems only arise when one(human or bird the same) doesn't eat a balanced diet, consumes more than body can utilize/metabolize, mentally addicted to eating due stress or boredom, for a long period of time.

My birds live in their house (my bookshelf). They just don't spend much time there during the day

If your bird is wing-clipped, doesn't fly, cage-bond, then low energy food would be better. (Same as if you work in an office all day and don't go to gym, you shouldn't be eating too much sugar, fried food, or even meat.)

I do encourage people to keep their pet birds active. It's good for birds. And happy birds make happy co-inhabiting humans. So I must not discount the benefit of seeds. On the other hand I agree with your diet ideas because that's more or less similar to how my birds eat, but instead of cooked beans I use soaked beans(and seeds), and sprouts from them, then you can also grow microgreens. It's not just bird food, I add them to my lunch, yum!


Toilet training -- I tell them WHERE to go not when to go. my conure flies to the approved spot whenever he needs to go. He never asks me for approval, he is a bird after all, and there is no food treat if he holds it in or waiting for a phrase to be said or something. There is a phrase for pooping but it's not a command.(I don't command my birds, I negotiate. Commands rarely work for parrots anyway). In the situation he can't get to it quick enough, he just flies off me and poop anywhere he lands. My tiel doesn't have preferred spots, so as long as he doesn't poop on me or around my desk or on any fabric surfaces it's fine.

I feel as if we've bonded well already, I only have a little home that is pretty well bird-proofed, and he enjoys following me EVERYWHERE. if I'm on the couch he'll sit on my shoulder, if I'm doing the dishes he will sit on the dish rack beside me and act like an acrobat, if I'm having breakfast he will gladly walk little birdy-tracks of tomato sauce across the table.

The only thing I'm puzzled about is his night time antics. He'll carry on and beg to come out but then he'll get cranky and start biting! Is he just tired?

He did come to me very dirty, he was only 8 weeks old and he didn't know step up, he'd always been grabbed around the wings. Even though he may have had a rocky start I feel like he's making great progress

Sounds like your bonding is taking place. Good job!

Sometimes I have my birds sitting on my laptop in the evening when it starts to get dark (lights off of course), and birds gradually get sleepy and doze off (this is also after they had dinner). I then gently put them back to their sleeping place and leave. Like Wolf mentioned, if you have lights on he would angrily think it's still daytime and you are locking him away again. Associating 'getting dark', 'sleepy', 'cage/place to sleep' together is a good thing. My birds always put themselves to sleep when I am not around. (When I am around they sleep on me...)


On nipping -- firstly do not punish, doesn't work for parrots. You should reflect on what makes him nip and avoid the cause as much as you can. It's a great opportunity to learn about your bird too.

Bird on the head -- not when they are eating for sure.

[Wolf]

I would really suggest that you do a bit more research on beans in your birds diet as it is only recommended to feed thoroughly cooked beans to birds as they have compound that are toxic to birds. These compounds are destroyed by the process of cooking them. This is why I always specify cooked beans.