Need Advice - Green Cheek Conure

[Cinna]

Hi There!

I’m new to the forum and was hoping someone might be able to help and give me some advice…
I have two Green Cheek Conures. 1 yellow sided that is a year old, I got him from a breeder in Florida and had him shipped to me. He is gorgeous and has a good sense of humor, but just plain mean. He doesn’t like to be held, wont step up unless he is on the floor and wants us. Overall just doesn’t want anything to do with us, yet will scream his head off if we leave the room. Long story short, a few months ago we found a local breeder who had a beautiful cinnamon who is a complete love bug. Wants nothing more than to be close to us, snuggle, just an adorable little one. He/She is only 4 months old, we have not DNA tested the new bird yet. We have quarantined for almost 60 days now, we need to decide if we want to move the cages near each other, work on housing them together, or just keep them completely separate. My questions are, will the new calm one rub off on the grumpy one? Can his bad habits rub off on the new one and then we go from 1 nice and 1 grumpy to 2 grumpy birds? We have tried everything with our original guy. Changed up foods (currently back on Roudybush which seems to be his favorite), lots of toys (all different kinds), plenty of “out of cage time” which he just wants to sit on the top and stare at us. Fresh fruits/veggies daily and head scritches when he isn’t trying to bite us. When we originally got him up he was very timid and while we were told he was “hand raised” he seems very much like he was parent raised, although I’m not sure if the flight may have played a factor. I appreciate any help/advice, thanks!

[Pajarita]

It's impossible to answer the question with any certainty but, based on my personal experience with GCCs, males tend to be nippy while females are sweet and cuddly. Having said that, they do change as they mature and sweet babies can become nippy adolescents... I had two male/female bonded pairs and, in one case, the male (which was not a GCC but a peachfront) had been abused (was handicapped) and was terrified of people while the other male (a GCC) had also been abused/neglected and was a mean son of a gun but it only lasted about two to three weeks and he calmed down to the point that he was burrowing inside my clothes to take naps, etc - UNTIL he met his girlfriend (a sweet GCC girl) and then got very protective of her (read: nippy but quite manageable -you just had to be careful with the hen). Both hens remained bonded to me and sweet-tempered (I never got a single nip from them after the first couple of weeks -all these birds were adults and adoptions or rehomes).

Personally, I always strive to get companions/mates for my birds because I know for a fact this is what makes them happiest and, if the males get protective, I just deal with it. But you can't really 'work' in housing them together or making them bond... these things need to be left entirely up to them.

[Wolf]

More info on your first bird such as how long have you had him, how long after you got him did he get grumpy, were you attempting to train him before he got grumpy and how did that go. this type of info as well as normal what is his diet and so on.

All of this would help us to maybe come up with a workable answer for you.

[Cinna]

More info on your first bird such as how long have you had him, how long after you got him did he get grumpy, were you attempting to train him before he got grumpy and how did that go. this type of info as well as normal what is his diet and so on.

All of this would help us to maybe come up with a workable answer for you.

Thank you both for your replies, Wolf please see the below answers to hopefully help:

We have had our first bird for about 10 months and he has always been timid and refused to get near us. We at first thought it was just the plane ride and gave it a few days before trying to take him out of the cage. When that didn't work we left the cage door open and let him come out on his own. While he has gotten a lot better he still runs away if you open the cage door. If it's closed he will come right up to the bars (although sometimes to try to bite you). He started to get really grumpy (actively trying to attack out hands if we are bringing in food/changing water etc) about 4 or 5 months ago. Since the day he has come home we have worked with actively "training him" for atleast 30 mins a day. From simple, set up commands, target training, taking food from our hands, etc. Always tons and tons of praise and treats throughout the entire process.

General Info:
His cage is a A&E Flight Cage (32" L X 21" W X 63" H) with a variety of toys, swings, snuggle ring and perches.
Always has access to food and water (two different water crocks one normal and one shallow but wide for bathing and playing). Food is Roudybush "Crumbles" mixed with Roudybush "Mini" since he seems to like dunking the mini ones in his water. We have tried a few other foods in the beginning to see what he liked and between ZuPreem naturals, Harrison's, Higgins and Roudybush he liked the Roudybush the most.
He gets fresh fruits/veggies daily, normally apples slices which are his favorite with some kind of leafy greens.
He gets a new Millet spray every other day and typically destroys it in about 5 minutes
His wings were clipped when we got them but we have left them grow out. We do our own nail trimmings but have never cut the quick.

Sorry for the long reply and I really appreciate your help!

[Wolf]

I think that I would start with food, I believe that he is getting too much protein, I would feed him mash type food in the morning along with some fruit and veggies. Provide veggies for the day in case he wants more to eat and then some canary seed in the evening. I believe that Pajarita has a good mash recipe that she would share with you, there are also others that have personal recipes that they would share as well. I just don't have all of the who's who worked out in my mind yet.

I think that I would start all over with the taming process from the beginning. You know, sitting with him and talking with him and so forth. I don't know what failed in the previous attempt, maybe going too fast and not waiting for him to signal that he was ready for the next step. It is easy to do especially if you are new to birds. I think that beginning all over may reduce how territorial he is about his home (Cage), because you will be working on building trust and that appears to be lacking. Just go slow and wait for him to respond to you in a friendly manner before you proceed to next phase.

I don't know if it will solve it completely or not as it seems to me that there may be other issues happening.

[Cinna]

I would be very interested in trying a mash recipe. I was worried since majority of his diet is the pellets I would say about 80%. The fruits and veggies are daily and then I was hoping the millet would round out the diet. I can add some additional seed to see if that might help the behavior. We are open to try anything if it gets him to calm down
It's a good idea to restart from square one with training, we try to always have thing on his terms. My husband seems to think that we are letting him control the situation which I highly doubt. However, I am doubting he is actually afraid of us and more just doesn't like people
We do have friends and family over on the weekend but we make sure everyone says hi to him as they come in and if any loud noises/guys playing video games/etc he gets moved into another room so it doesn't scare him.
It's just so weird the difference between our new bird and him, polar opposites!
Only other thing we can think of is he is home alone for around 6 hours a day in-between when I leave and my husband gets home. Not sure if he is just lonely or not, we do turn on the radio for him when we leave though.

I have a silly question. You suggested canary seeds in the evening, do you mean like a canary seed mix or straight canary seeds? Any particular brand you could recommend?

Thanks again!

[Wolf]

Just a mix and probably cut back on the millet as it is higher in protein than the canary mix would be. Just look at the mix and pick the one that looks like it has more grass type seed in it.