Taming Training Question with Sun Conures

[kicksnj]

A little history about my birds.I have adopted 2 Sun Conures. They are 4 years old. They are male and female and have been together in one cage I believe all there life. I have DNA tests for them, so I do know its a male and female. Also very important to know is I am the 3th or 4th owner of these guys.

The last person I got them from said he could not stand the screaming all the time he said they would never stop. They would go on for hours and hours. And he said he couldn't ever touch the birds without getting bit really bad. To be honest I don't think much has ever been done for these poor birds, other then re-homing them too many times. When I went to get them, I had to break the cage down in order to fit it in the car. I walked right up to the cage as they were screaming and put my hand in and both birds jumped on my arm and ran up to my shoulder where they stayed while I was taking the cage apart. Most of the time they were pretty quite. When it was time to go to there new home, the last owner gave me a travel cage and I was able to get them up on my hand with a nip or two and they went right into the travel cage for me. The owner was shocked how well they were behaving with me.

They have been with me now for about 5 weeks. The male seems the one to do all the screaming. But since I am home most of the time, I have them both in my site so that seems to calm down the male. Also if I give them a bath "shower" in the sink they stop the screaming. I know they will be vocal at times but it seems I have gotten them tamed down with the screaming. I do have a spare bedroom that there cage is in and I cover them and put the lights out. The gym/play stand is in the living room. I also built a training stand for them.

So now to make a long story longer I am at times able to get them to "step up" on my hand without forcing them to get on my hand, "Chasing them in the cage with my hand to get on it". And I know that is a bad thing to do. Most of the time they will not step up at all. They run to the back of the cage. I do want to say here that at this point in time since I have had them most of the biting has stopped. In fact when I do have them out and lay on the couch I have them on my stomach where they seem to be content and will play with my hands and fingers. Especially the male, he has the strongest bond with me. The female most of the time could not care less whither I play with her or not. But I am to the point where they seem to be very comfortable with me now. SOOOOOO finally the question I have.......

I really want to start training them, probably clicker training. I want them to want to step up all time and not be afraid of my hand. But is this going to be impossible to do since they are both in the cage at the same time? Some one told me I really need to seperate them and each one in there own cage and better to not have them both cages in the same room while you are going to train them. I think that would have a negative impact on them since they have always been together.

Others have told me to just keep them as breeders and take one of the babies and hand feed and train that from the very start to have a super tame conure. Im not sure if Im ready for that, and I have a feeling thats why they have been homed so many times. Maybe they were bought for breeding and they never did. But I could be wrong. I did for the heck of it put a breeder box on the outside of the cage but they won't even go near it.

So I am open to suggestions as to what to do.....

[Polarn]

first off if you want them to breed, you need to change their diet slightly, some food encourage breeding and some are nessesary for them while producing eggs.

About the training, if their 4 years old and tame enough to be close to you I see no reason why they could not be trained as any other bird, keeping them in the same cage wouldnt be a problem either, however they might consider the other bird its mate instead of you, but you should still be able to interact with them and train them even if their not mating with you... however you might have to take one at a time away from the cage for training, some birds have no problem training with other birds around, some gets distracted... but im pretty sure you will figure that out and unless your prepared to get an extra bird or two, i honestly wouldn't have a breeding box for them. however if you want these two and an additional one, then go ahead, but read up on what kind of food they need to have nutrition enough to produce the eggs and be healthy, also consider the risks for the female that is involved in reproduction. I would be too scared for her, i know how scary i found it the first few times the goats had trouble getting their kids out, and there your actually able to help out... while with a bird, i wouldn't know what todo if there were any complications with the female...

[Shelby]

Others have told me to just keep them as breeders and take one of the babies and hand feed and train that from the very start to have a super tame conure. Im not sure if Im ready for that, and I have a feeling thats why they have been homed so many times. Maybe they were bought for breeding and they never did. But I could be wrong. I did for the heck of it put a breeder box on the outside of the cage but they won't even go near it.

From your post, I get the impression that you don't have much experience with birds, much less breeding and handfeeding them, so I would HIGHLY suggest removing the breeder box and just focusing on making them more confident and building a relationship with them.

When you train birds, it's best to work with one individually at a time, unless you are teaching one by modelling. So for now, I would train individually and not try to separate them just yet - especially if they have lived together their whole lives.

Check out Michael's Taming Article and start with that.