Raising a well mannered Sun Conure?

[Victor52]

Hello,
I am very excited to join this forum and hope to learn a lot from reading everyone's posts.

I have a couple questions about a new bird and want to know your opinions. Any help would be greatly appreciated and welcomed.
Before my questions I think I should introduce my parrot owning experiences so that you guys can get a better understanding of my goals.

Over the last couple of years I have worked with a rescue green cheek that has had many problems which I suppose occurred from the various homes it has had (I found her at an animal shelter where she was fed dog food? )
We worked very hard to achieve a relationship that I feel improved her life. We overcame many phobias that basicly crippled her to screaming and bitting. I love her to death and I am lucky to have her in my life. After slowly working with her, learning from various online resources and books, she can perform various tricks; spin, wave, shake hands, kiss (with the kissing sound), flip, and bat bird! I feel we have made large strides with only one thing that bothers me. She is deathly afraid of anyone else but me. That is something I am currently addressing and hope to get her through this problem.

Now on to my question.
I love my green cheek so much and enjoyed our time together (still enjoying) that after much research and planning purchased a sun conure.
I feel I did everything correct:
I found a reputable breeder that sold me a well socialized hand fed bird that was weaned to my diet of choice (roudy bush pellets, greens, vegetables, fruits.)
I literally received a perfect bird. A clean slate.
My goals for my conure are I would love a well mannered parrot that can interact with multiple people. I can care less about trick training, and only used that as a tool to positively bond with my green cheek.

My question is: As of right now, knowing what I know from my rescue bird, I am very cautious to expose him to only positive experience. Am I going about his rearing in a nearatic way? I have read so many conflicting information that states I should expose my bird to good and unpleasant situation. What can I do to assist him be a good companion bird that has the tools to cope with a normal life?

As of now I have had him for three weeks and have taken him on multiple car rides around the block, let him perch on other people's fingers (after them being coached on what to do,) and have had "play time" were he steps up onto my fingers over and over again.

If you have any input or even resources online that I should read please send them my way.
Thank you for reading and hope to be pointed in the right direction,
Victor

[Wolf]

Welcome to the world of parrots as well as to the forum.
There is a lot of conflicting information floating around and it is probably going to get worse before it gets better as far has how much conflicting information there is. This is due to the fact that although people have kept these birds for hundreds of years, there has been very little actual research done on parrots. This has been changing during the last 20 years or so, which means that most of the correct information about them is relatively new and is just now beginning to reach the public and it clashes with the way that things have been being done so its acceptance is rather slow. You could say that for the majority of us parrot keeping is in its infancy and that there are many areas that there are no scientifically conclusive studies as of yet.
Just the act of taking your parrot outside in public places is controversial at this time as there are those that feel that doing this will benefit the bird by exposing it to strange and new situations, thereby teaching it how to cope with these situations. And there may be some merit to these claims. At this time as far as I am aware there is no conclusive scientific information to use as a guideline, on this specifically.
What we do know is that parrots do not do well with a lot of change in their lives, that it causes them too much stress and can lead to problem behaviors such as feather plucking. With the destruction of their natural habitat the wild parrot numbers are declining with many species on the brink of extinction in the wild. This is because, despite their intelligence they don't adapt to these changes well. Everytime a parrot is taken to a new place the become scared, this is worse for the companion bird as it does not have a flock to help protect itself from the possible dangers. No matter what we do, we can not eliminate all of the stresses although we can try to reduce the stress by not taking it to new and strange places or by not allowing strangers to handle our birds. So there are some of us who believe that it is best to not stress the bird in this manner and some who believe otherwise. I do take some of my birds out for a ride in my car on occasion, because the nearest avian vet to me is two hours away and I don't want them to stress too much during transit. I don't do it often again because it does stress them.
Stress if a strange thing, in that we can't just eliminate it and some stress can be beneficial. It depends not only on the type of stress but the intensity and duration of the stress. Both joy and anger are stresses but they act differently on the mind and body. There needs to be more research into this area both short and long term before we will get any clear answers to this.
Moving on to the area of wanting the birds that you have to be more interactive with other people. Both the GCC and the Sun Conure have a strong tendency to be one person birds, in that they will choose one person as their favored human and try to avoid most other human contact although give time and gentle encouragement they will usually accept other household members and even a few regular visitors as part of their flock and accept some level of interaction with them although not to the extent of their special human with whom they bond. This is actually true with most species of parrots. Visitors to my home are made aware that I have these birds and that I will not lock them up just because they come to visit, the birds may or may not be out at whatever time they come over and that the bird may of may not decide to check them out. If the bird goes to them to not make any fast movements and if they are not comfortable with the bird landing on them that I will remove the bird from them so as they don't get bitten. They are advised that the best thing is for them to ignore the birds and not try to initiate any contact. I do not try to eliminate all stress from my birds life but I do attempt to control how much and what type of stresses they do experience.

[Pajarita]

How old is this bird? What, exactly, is the daily diet? Meaning, are you offering soft foods?

I am one of the ones that don't agree with the 'early socialization' concept. I think it's one of those things that we have transposed from working with other types of pets because it works with dogs and cats but they are mammals and have a completely different social structure than parrots. I think it's too stressful for young birds which do not even leave the nest at the age they are usually sold.

[Victor52]

Wow wolf, wonderful post. Very interesting reading. Thank you for taking time to write such a detailed post.
So when would you suggest I start incorporating different people into his "training." My unltimate goal is having him be able to be handled, I understand the realm of what a parrot "can" deam possible, by different people.

Pajarita:
Thank you for posting.
My bird about 3 months going on 4.
His daily diet mainly consists of RoudyBush pellets 80% and Quicko Egg Food 20% (mixed with water and vegetables to make a mash.) I've used seeds once or twice since I've had him as a form of entertainment as well as whole vegetables (more regularly) fed by hand mainly for play.

[Wolf]

Please don't take this wrong, but the current diet sucks. It is a very high fat, high protein diet which in time will increase the birds aggressiveness by encouraging hormone production as well as cause liver, heart and kidney disease. We learned this from the old way of feeding our parrots seeds all of the time and pellets or crumbles are primarily dried, ground up seeds and artificial additives.
Parrots need to eat a diet of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, leafy greens and some legumes and some seeds. In todays bird market here in the States most birds are weaned from a formula to either seeds or pellets because of costs. This leaves it up to the new and often unsuspecting bird owner to teach the bird to eat a proper diet. The biggest issue here is that the new bird owner has no idea as to what the bird should be eating or how to go about teaching the bird to eat the right foods, or that they even need to. Please read this viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12521 I think that you will find it to be helpful and not only in just feeding your birds.
I cook food for my birds, you can go to the health, diet and nutrition section and using the search function fill in the word gloop and read all about the food that I feed my birds as well as several recipes for making it. I feed my birds 2 fresh raw vegetables, a fruit and a leafy green and gloop for breakfast and all day eating and then feed a good quality seed mix for dinner which is removed when the bird goes to sleep for the night. Once they are switched to this diet they love it and it is good for them. I highly recommend it.

[Pajarita]

Wolf is correct about the diet and I hope you haven't been feeding your GCC the same thing because they are primarly fruit eaters in the wild and require low protein, high moisture and high fiber which this diet does not have.

I would wait until the sun conure is sexually mature before I start introducing strangers into the mix. Also, do you know for a fact that the baby bird is 'perfect'? Has it had a complete check-up? Breeders sell baby birds that are sick, have congenital defects, etc. all the time. We had a member whose bird died at 5 months of age from a congenital condition...

[Victor52]

Yes I agree my diet may not be the best and there is always room for improvements but I have done about a years worth of research (I know that is nothing compared with years of real life experience) as well as speaking with multiple vets and I feel a mainly pelleted diet is best for my new bird. As far as my green cheek, she is a special circumstance because she was a rescue that was fed a completely seed diet that I assume was of the worst quality found in large chain stores; mainly millet and sunflower seed. I worked very hard to slowly convert her, with the assistance and professional guidance of an avian vet. She now eats about 80-90% RoudyBush and 10-20% very selective vegetables/fruits. Her health was horrible, with many complications. This year's multiple check ups came back much better and my vet is happy with our progress.

Pajarita, most certainly we went to the vet and got a clean bill of health. Having one other conure and two canaries I would not risk bringing in a new bird without the green light. I did a lot of research on breeders and drove many miles to visit many facilities to find the one I could trust to get my baby bird. I am really trying to do everything correctly and woud not skimp on such a basic detail.
I suppose I really meant he was perfect as to his baby disposition. He doesn't bite, steps up on command, enjoys being handled. I know it is because he is young but these are traits that I want to help nurture to adulthood.
Regarding that aspect, when he does bite how do I react to it? It usually happens when we are sitting and I'm not engaging with him. He starts "teething" my finger and then he goes too far and really chomps down. I have these little wooden dowels that came from a larger broken bird toy that I now hold between my fingers to have him mess with instead of my skin. Therefore I really don't think its aggressive behavior just baby exploration. I've read multiple articles that state that conures sometimes "play" at this stage and will let each other know when they get to rough. I assume similar to puppies. How do I let him know it was not acceptable without crossing into punishment? I have just been placing him on the nearest safe surface and walking away. The thing is he is funny because he finds a way to entertain himself and enjoys playing with his tail or laying on his back and playing with his toys. He is one that enjoys being on me as well as playing to himself (definitely not a bad thing) but I don't think he senses he did something wrong lol.

Can you please explain your reasoning behind waiting until sexual maturity to introduce other people. With a conure that would be at two or three years old and surely they would have seen and interacted with other birds in the wild way before that. And since the consensus, from my various reading of posts and articles, is that most parrots consider us equals, why then would we wait for them to see and interact with other people.

Wow sorry this was a long one. It's great to able to communicate with others that enjoy birds as much as I. Most of my friends usually look at me funny when I try to weave my feathered friends into our conversation.

[Wolf]

Well, while I disagree with you concerning the diet, I certainly understand the time, energy and thought that you have put into trying to provide a better diet for them than what they had when they came to live with you. Every one of my birds came to me as older adults eating poor diets and from abusive places, some of them still having mental and emotional difficulties after three years with me. I am constantly doing more research into their dietary/ nutritional needs and how to best proceed with giving the very best that I can.
Most vets in this country tend to push a pelleted diet and I think that it is primarily for two reasons the first being money from the companies that make the feeds and secondly because it does provide a better diet than most people would otherwise provide for them. But that is just my opinion and everybody has them. I would urge you to not take any one persons opinion on what is best for your bird but to take the time to research everything that you can about your birds needs on an ongoing basis and then decide for yourself.
I am not meaning to answer for Pajarita but I like the little sticks thing to give your bird something more to explore while he is beaking your fingers and just setting him down, with perhaps a no bite statement when he bites down too hard and letting him have a couple of minutes off of you is a great way to deal with this aspect of his growing up.