4 happy conure & 1 not so happy

[FeatherKaeru]

I've owned quite a few different types of parrots, with a number of abused behavior. Right now I am owned by 5 green cheek conures. 3 are rescues. Two of them I hand raised. One I'm having a hard time training. One moment he's sweet as can be the next he hates my guts. At the moment I can not handle him at all. Every time I think I made some progress. He goes back to biting. Not a nip or warning bite. A flat out I'm biting and holding on. Grinding my beak into your flesh chop. Try not screaming or making a big fuss. But, I do show him its not what i want, by saying no. And putting him down. Paying no attention to him..many times I've fallen for that I'm so cute and innocent look. When I made some progress in training sessions. To get bit again. Kaeru was so sweet until he turned 3 and I got busy with the farm. I try spending as much time as I can with all my birds. It seems all of them are doing well. But, he seems to take it personal and is upset with me. Kaeru and the others receive an organic well balance diet of sprouted seeds, fruits and veggies, seeds, pellets. I make my own bird gloop in many different ways. I make toys for them. I just need some advice. Maybe I over looked something or I missed something along the way ...

[Wolf]

First of all I don't subscribe to the suck it up and don't let them know that they hurt me. If it were another bird that he bit he would get yelled at and probably attacked right back. So when my birds bite me they get a pained response as well as a no bite response and I put them down and won't talk to them for several minutes. I don't go off the deep end with the exclaimation of pain but I do let them know.
What about his light schedule and exposure to the twilight periods of dawn and dusk? What is his sleep schedule?

[FeatherKaeru]

All of my conures wake up between 7-9 in the morning. And go to bed between 7-9 pm depends when the sun sets. Like you stated about showing your displeasure of being bitten and saying no. Putting them down. I have tried that. He's pretty smart. If he doesn't want to listen. Like for instance the stepping up or out of cage time is big no. Cause he will just fly up on the window ledge. We have 10 ft ceilings. Most of the time I'm getting up and down a step ladder. Of course it's just the bird room he is in. Would be silly to chase him through the house. I want to be able to take him out and enjoy his company with the other birds.like I use to have with him. Without the chasing and random bites. Many forums say to clicker train or touch train. And that will form a bond. But, some people say to earn his trust again. And I am doing that part. Just sometimes I feel like I'm going in circles.

[Wolf]

I hear you and it does seem at times like we are just going in circles, although I tend to view it more as a spiral because, with my birds, even when covering the same thing again and again they seem to add something more to it in the end.
I don't chase my birds. If they are uncooperative with me, I just sit down and start fiddleing with something else. Often while I do this I place a treat near myself where they can see it and wait for their arrival, sometimes bribery is just the ticket to get things going in the direction that I want them to go in.
I don't have any scheduled training times for any of my birds, all of the training that I do is incorporated into playing with them and petting them, it is all just a part of living together. It also seems to me that in doing training in this manner they feel as if they have some choice in what we do, and they are right as what mood they are in and what they appear to be most interested in at any time is all worked into what we are doing. This means that some days there is no training going on and other times training is a big part of playing with them. In many respects it is just like teaching a toddler.
I am really big on trust and bonding, I also do see them as the same thing, although the one goes hand in hand with the other most of the time. When Kiki, my Senegal, first bonded with me, she still did not trust me very much. We were new to each other and she came here on her own as she had ran away from her previous abusive home. The actual trust did not come until she wanted proof that I trusted her in spite of her frequent bites. She wanted proof in the form of holding my finger in her beak and I gave it, fully aware that she was apt to bite another chunk of flesh from me. Once I did this she started trusting me. She still demands this show of trust once in a while, especially when she gets nervous. I guess she feels that it will be just fine if I will prove that I trust her and in most cases she calms right down. I have no idea as to how or why this helps her, but it does.
As far as I am concerned the bonding is a gift from them to us. I know that it is a mate bond, but none of us really know how or why they choose who they choose and each of my birds have shown me that the bonding and trust are not the same thing. Training can help to strengthen the trust that the bird has in you, but it does not create the trust you have to establish the trust first. So very often I see people training their birds when I think that they should be bonding with the bird and earning its trust. These people tend to think I am nuts, due to the quick responses that they see with the training and all of the apparent progress that they experience. Given a little time, a month, two or sometimes even three months down the road these same people are back with stories of how their bird suddenly changed and instead of responding to them the bird suddenly runs or flies away from them and tries to avoid them and when the bird can't avoid them the bird resorts to biting them. The bird does not trust them, they were training the bird and not bonding and earning the birds trust. They got so caught up in the excitement of training that they kept missing the bird trying to let them know that they were doing the wrong activity as the bird wanted and needed companionship and reassurance and understanding. The bird needed them to listen to it and they weren't there for the bird in this manner because they were too busy training.
This is not to say that training is bad, even when done too soon, only that the aspects of earning the birds trust is first and foremost in building a good solid foundation for their relationship. When it is neglected, at some point the bird ceases to respond in a positive manner and the human has to stop the training and begin to build their relationship from the ground up all over again, they must earn the birds trust.
I suppose that the root of this is that we humans live in a dominance based society or culture and do as we are told to do by the strongest. Birds do not live in this manner and so our point of reference when working with the bird must change and we have to start looking at the way that the bird thinks.
I really think that you need to stop chasing your bird, he is much more likely to come to you if you calmly wait for him to do so while talking to him and calling him to come to you. And as mentioned earlier showing him that you have treats may be just the thing to get him to come down to you of his own volition. In the end every thing that we are able to do with a bird is based on the amount of and quality of the trust that the bird has in us.
My bird resents my hand in its cage and doesn't want to step up for me while inside of its cage. Not a problem, knowing that the bird tends to protect its nesting spot from intrusion, I just wait and let the bird come out to me and then ask for the step up. Living with a bird is more a matter of learning to work and appreciate them than of teaching them to do as we say. I always proceed in accord with what the bird wants and I want it to want to be with me, this is not a matter of training it is a matter of trust, a matter of the relationship that I have with the bird.
I have put things in this manner as I think that you probably have the knowledge to do the training, I think that you problem is more in how you look at your relationship than with anything else.

[Pajarita]

Is he the 'odd one' out? Meaning, are the other four bonded to each other but he is kind of 'out of the loop'? When it comes to GCCs, five is not a good number, you are much better off with even pairs because there is no way on this green earth that you can spend a solid 2-3 hours of one-on-one with each of them and that is, pretty much, what they require so your best bet is to pair them off so they get the attention they need from the other bird and do not pine for you.

The other thing is the light schedule. At 3, he is a sexually mature adult in the prime of his 'pep' and keeping him producing sexual hormones all year round makes them very aggressive. Free-feeding high protein does, too (you don't say whether you do or not).

I don't believe that training creates any kind of valuable bond between a human and a parrot. It might deepen the bond once it's there and it might entertain the bird as well as teach the human how to read a bird better but it does not create a bond - it couldn't because it does not represent or imitate any natural bonding behavior.

[FeatherKaeru]

Wolf - thank you for the insight. All which you said are better then any person has stated before. I have started the bonding process with kaeru. Maybe in a couple weeks or months. I will be able to write good news of our progress.

Pajarit a - kaeru (4 years old) is bonded to Firetail (7 years) daughter of Tsume( 11 years) Who he also bonded with. Those three get along very well. Cause they were my first 3 GCC. Then Firetail and Kaeru had two babies ( they were a surprised hatch) I don't believe in making unwanted parrots for profit. Starfire and cloud (2 years and are the babies of the flock) they all get along. Except Tsume doesn't like sharing me with the two youngster. But, she will share me with kaeru and firetail. Okay on the matter of kaeru. Everyone has a set time to sleep which is usually between 8-9 pm then wakes up between 7-9 am. That time varies more so in fall and winter time. Since shorter day light. All the birds get gloop, fruits n veggies. Seeds n pellets. I know my birds don't get enough time with me. Even though I try my best. So that doesn't happen. But, I do spend time in the morning and evening. Some days I'm there 3 times or 4-5. Kaeru has always been a nibbler since he was young. Play with my fingers & such. I'd rather him do that then receive his bites. Sometimes we make mistakes. It's up to us to fix them. I don't blame kaeru for being upset really... if I forgot anything please let me know thanks for any insight you can give

[Wolf]

I think it is a matter of trust, still. What you have just said in response to Pajarita seems to confirm this in my mind. You are pressed for time to spend with each as well as all of these birds, but the fact that they have each other would usually translate into it taking a longer time to establish the amount of trust that is needed, and often it seems that when they have enough of a flock that their bonding with us is not as deep of a bond as we would normally prefer. So this is what I am thinking is occurring in this situation. I could easily be wrong, I know that so anything else that you think of might help to figure this out.

[Pajarita]

Do you put out the seeds/pellets in the morning?

[FeatherKaeru]

Sprouts and gloop n the morning. Evening is pellets/seeds with an apple or fruit n leafy greens

[Pajarita]

Well, then it's not high protein but the fact that you don't spend enough one-on-one with him. GCCs are a problem that way, they are very, very needy little things. I have one which was given up because of aggression (same as the other three I took in) but, in reality, she is the sweetest, sweetest thing and, because she has a boyfriend and doesn't live in a cage, all I have to do is spend two hours a day with her on me and she is fine but I would assume that with all the animals you have is impossible for you to spend two hours with each of the conures... Personally, I would just let him be. He has a mate and a little flock and, in reality, all he needs out of you is good care -which you are already giving him- so it's not as if you would be cheating him out of anything by letting him live a birdy life.