Taming a parent raised green cheek conure DIARY

[lee ireland]

Hi all,

Im making this diary posting day by day on how my experience, progress and understanding of taming a parent raised green cheek conure,

so far im nearly at week 3 of having my little green cheek,

heres whats been going on so far:

name: Rocco

gender: Unknown ( please bare with, until we DNA sex we stall just call it he/she and maybe sometimes he lol

age: 6 months

diet: SEEDS!

Week 1:

day 1

Settling into his new home not really exploring anything nor making much noise, is happy to watch everyone get on with their day, but does not want to move from the top corner of the cage, rocco seems to be happy to eat and drink and every now and then he/she comes down for a nibble... rocco sleeps a lot today, i place this down to the new move

day 2

rocco has moved to the front top corner of the cage today, i moved a play perch into this area as he likes to watch everyone do their day to day things! today i and others can walk up to the cage without causing him/she to move away... later that day rocco was taking food from fingers but moving back into the corner after taking it.

day 3-4

rocco is beginning to explore his new home, he is still taking food from fingers but slowly and inconstantly staying after taking the treat from the finger, sometimes he stays sometimes he goes back into the corner, starting to explore toys and chews, he is also taking different foods now such as fruits and veg, a little pellets but mostly still seeds, noise level increasing but we are working on that by leaving the room when he goes on a crazy one for longer than 10 minutes, we understand birds make noise but to us more than 10 minutes is excessive.

rocco is allowing me to hoover, clean the cage and walk up to the cage without scaring him, this was achieved by stopping and starting the hoover jobs taking about an hour when normally will take me 5 minutes, every time i start the hoover up a treat comes, also before and after cleaning out the cage i give 1 treat, i walk up to the cage every hour for a few days with 1 treat each time as well as spending 30 minutes daily with trust exercises such as talking, giving treats and placing my hand near him to a comfortable point where he doesnt move away

day 10

rocco has settled in very well and has learnt to adjust to the noise level of my loud young children, in fact now he is actually copying them and starting when they are, by the look of him this is not distress but rather a social tactic joining in on all the commotion

all training is the same and still is moving greatly so i decide to let him out the cage, he was out for about 4 hours and didnt go back in, i had to grab him to put him back as i couldnt leave him out all night, this did have a slightly negative effect although he still takes food from my finger

day 14

rocco is now taking food from my hand

day 15-16

rocco is taking food from my hand even though he has to reach for it, he demanded me to move my hands closer by nipping me.. not ashamed to say i moved away a few times until i got used to it, not too bad just a weird feeling especially when you dont expect it,

he placed 1 foot onto my hand but then ran away after,

i can now place my hand inside of the cage without causing any distress and give a treat where eve he is within the cage

day 17

rocco came out for 2 hours, he flew into the window and then hit the floor, he doesnt seem to be distressed, his wing got clipped before i got him and from what i make of it is struggling to fly correctly, sadly he will just have to adjust and get used to it as theres not much i can really do except wait until they grow back so he can become fully flighted, he walked around the room a little looking slightly on edge although i managed to give him a treat from my hand on the floor allowing him to come up to me... he had to move about 1/2 a meter to receive the treat, i refilled the water and food bowl and placed inside of the cage, he figured out how to get back in so all good

the summary of the missed diary logs are:

taming process is working very nicely as he now takes food from the hand and fingers, he licks my and nibbles me more than nipping...

he has settled in very well for just a short amount of time,

his diet has changed to 60% organic top pellets, 10% seeds in treats and 30% fruit and veg... he doesnt eat a lot of pellet but its a start, he was and still is a seed addict, the higher fruit and veg ratio is to provide enough minerals and vitamins he is lacking from not eating much pellet, each day is different some days he eats a nice amount of it, some not at all.

he seems more at peace with being out of the cage

[lee ireland]

from now all posts will be made daily showing all progress reports and behaviour

the summary of his routine to date, this will be changed from week to week using different taming and training techniques

7am

the cage gets uncovered and new replacement for fresh food and water is provided

5 minutes quick talk to him before i get the kids ready for school

9am

15 minute session for bonding included giving greats, placing my hands close to his body with the cage door open, a perch is next to the cage door so that he can come to me to receive the treat

11am

i open the cage up and place to top perch onto the cage for him to now be free to explore ect


( will finish this later tonight )

[Pajarita]

I don't know if this is a transition diet or the final one but, in case it is the final one, please do a bit more research on the diet of wild GCCs because they are mostly fruit eaters which means a diet VERY high in water content and fiber while low in protein so pellets are really not good for them, especially fed with seeds. Now, Tops are the best pellets bar none so, if you still want to feed them, I suggest you eliminate the seeds and use the pellets as dinner and make sure he always has fresh water (not a bottle but a bowl) in his cage.

[lee ireland]

pajarita

yes this diet is transition, my little rocco was a petshop bird that came from an aviary and just seemed to eat seeds and fruit from the start until i switched pellets to tops,

he was having more fruit than veg but since the poo became very runny and brown from that i found a perfect ratio of 50/50 and that seems to have made the poop

yes fresh water is always available within the bowl

i place fruit and veg within the bars so that rocco has to go and find it, seeds are mostly hidden within foraging boxes ect

[Pajarita]

Yes, GCCs poop is a bit runny at times but it's normal for them as they do consume large amounts of fruit so don't worry about it unless it's a steady thing.