Green cheek conures

[Nir]

currently doing research on GCC. If anyone has any experience with them please let me know what you think of them. Also how do they differ from senegals?

Also i know GCC is said to be apt birds but the "conure" tag does scare me into thinking that they might be very loud. Am i wrong? Are they usually good enough to be apartment birds similar to how senegals are quiet. Its ok if on ocasion they get loud.

So please let me know anything you know about them and what you experienced.

[marie83]

Mine is generally quiet but can have loud moments from time to time which from what I've heard is usual for this species but not guarenteed. He is cuddly and easy to train but that natural intelligence means that they can take advantage of their owners. There aren't usually good talkers but most will learn to say the odd word. You need to watch them closely with other birds because they are so confident and can be a bit of a bully. Green cheeks are prone to going through a nippy stage, mine was a nightmare for a while, he generally better with me than my partner so I do think alot is to do with how you deal with things. Even so these little birds are full of attitude.

[pennyandrocky]

my is pretty quiet once in a while he will fly around screaming for no reason and he does have some kind of relationship with a bluejay that visits my koi pond.he started out trying to talk to the bluejay while it was bathing in the waterfall but it turned into a screaming match that now happens once a day. it's not intolerable though.they are very cuddly and like marie said can be bullies.mine will wait for my dog to go to sleep and try to chew her toenails or land on her back for a ride luckily my dog was raised with birds so she's very tolerant.

[hooligan]

I have a GCC and will probably be getting another one later on in the fall.

Scrubby is very cuddly, extremely affectionate, learns tricks quickly (depending on whether I'm asking her to do something she's comfortable doing or not), and is fairly quiet. Like marie and penny said, she can scream on occasion. We live in an apartment, and we've pretty much figured out what kinds of things will motivate her to scream (if she's in her cage and can't see us, if she doesn't nap during the day, if she's trying to sleep and she hears certain voices, etc). By doing things to avoid those situations and not encouraging loudness, she's stayed quiet.

Scrubby does talk, but her voice is gravelly and doesn't sound as clear as some larger birds. If you search for GCC's talking on YouTube, there are some good examples of what it sounds like on there. She also doesn't speak on command yet, and mostly uses it when she wants to be affectionate or when she is ready for bed.

If I was going to mention something that someone might see as a con (because Scrubby isn't nippy or aggressive), it would be that she's very clingy. She wants to be wherever we are, will begin chirping if the entire flock isn't all in the same place, and it took some work to get her to play by herself. She does test us like marie mentioned. She's a bit like a child in that she knows that if she really wants to get attention, by doing something she's not supposed to, we'll need to intervene to stop her. While she is typically very well behaved, it takes work on our part to make sure that these kinds of opportunities don't present themselves.

[cmaygar]

I have 2 GCCs. They are absolutely wonderful little birds. They are quiet conures from the Pyrrhuna family (the Aratinga family of conures are the loud birds in general including sun conures for example). They are very smart and mine are affectionate and they have both started to talk a little bit at a young age with one being 6 months and one being 5 months old. They are quite acrobatic and love toys that swing that have bells attached as well as foraging toys and small whiffle ball foot toys. These birds have the noise level of a budgie or a cockatiel and would be fine in an apartment.

They can be nippy when young but tend to outgrow it. Mine don't bite, but may nibble my fingers a bit and it's never hurt.

I have no experience whatsoever with Senegals other than what I've read on this forum. The GCCs are friendly and mine at least aren't one-person birds. They'll also gladly put on an acrobatic display in front of friends that come to the house and aren't shy around strangers. Mine are a true joy and they are my favorite small parrot.

[Nir]

Can you guys talk about the attention and concentration span of a gcc compared to other birds like a a budgie or Senegal.

[marie83]

attention to what? I assume you mean attention to training- depends on how interesting your bird finds whatever it is your doing tbh, could be 5 minutes or half an hour...

[Nir]

attention to what? I assume you mean attention to training- depends on how interesting your bird finds whatever it is your doing tbh, could be 5 minutes or half an hour...

Ya training or just even to sit with you and get some scratches while watching tv. How long can he stay and do the activity like watching tv with you. Compare his attention span to a budgie if you can so I have an i idea. Also Senegal. Which has more concentration in general.

[marie83]

Well mine will pretty much sit indefinitely getting cuddles if we let him but it is never ever a good idea to do that for many reasons, overbonding and over reliance being a couple of those reasons. It really really is importance to teach independance too otherwise your going to get big problems. These birds are velcro birds usually with the odd exception.

I did make the mistake of giving him too much attention in the beginning but once you cant get a seconds peace that begins to wear thin. He then started pulling his chest feathers when I couldn't give him the attention he had come to expect because I had bad flu. Lesson learned big time.

[hooligan]

Mine is the same as marie's. She would be perfectly happy being scratched all day long if we let her. Also, like marie, we let her get away with this when she first arrived. She became really demanding of our attention, and actually refused to learn tricks when I first started training her. If she wasn't on my shoulder, she was too focused on getting back on it to learn anything. Target training is actually what helped us to get her to be more independent.

When we're doing trick training, each session is usually 10 minutes long. More than that and she starts to get tired and reluctant to cooperate. I can't make a comparison to budgies or Senegals, but she really enjoys it and will remain focused as long as there isn't a new outside distraction (a new person, a bird outside, a new toy, etc) or food that's nearby.

It really depends on how much she values the reward in comparison to what the tricks involve. While she was first learning to lay on her back, I kept the sessions shorter because she really disliked doing it. Now, though, she'll lay on her back in my hand forever because she knows I won't hurt her and that she'll be rewarded when she gets up.