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Sun Conure started biting after moving

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Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Citrussunconure » Mon Aug 01, 2016 4:41 pm

My sun conure citrus turned one in Januray. Her and I are very bonded and she has always been quite sweet to me. She wasn't biting me hardly at all anymore and only moderately nipping my husband. She knows a few tricks like spin, nod and wave. She eats a pellet diet, with millet every few days, nutri berries from time to time and watermelon when I have it. I've tried time and again to get her to eat other veggies but she just won't eat them. She bathes herself daily and seems healthy. Everything was really great until we moved.

We tried to keep the whole process as calm as possible for her and all our pets. We moved he quickly and set her cage up quickly at the new house. In a corner just like the old house. I didn't know until after that I should have arranged the toys the same way but it's too late for that now as we've been in our new home about a month. She loves shredding toys and I keep her cage full of them. I've kept some of her favorites in there and added some new ones. Everything has stayed the same food wise and schedule wise so it's not that. I've also taken her all over the house and talked to her to try to introduce her into the environment which hasn't helped.

The point is she wasn't nipping the way she is now before we moved but I'm not even sure that she is doing it for that reason. It could be that or it could be hormones in just not sure. I'm not sure where to go from here because I can't decide what the problem is or even where to start. She has her good moments and still kisses and let's us pet her half the time but when I tried the laddering technique she just bites my fingers when I do it and won't stop. I've tried saying no bite and putting her on her perch but then sometimes she just screams like someone's killing her. She never used to scream as long as I was in the room. If I left the room she would scream until I came back but now I'll be holding her even sometimes and she'll just start screaming. And it's a different kind of scream (a mother knows her baby's cry) than what she used to do. It's louder and short and quick. Like "look at me now!" But it's all a new behavior.

Please help. She's the only bird I've ever had and we had the sweetest most wonderful relationship until about a month ago and I don't wanna be the kind of bird mom that lets this spiral out of control until we both hate each other.

Thank you!
Citrussunconure
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: 1 sun conure
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Citrussunconure » Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:04 pm

Also to add on she really only nips when fingers are involved besides sometimes preening a bit too hard which is understandable. She will let us pet her sometimes but other times not at all. Also, she does not have any cage aggression and loves coming out of her cage but does seem comfortable in her cage as well when need be. My husband and I are teachers so currently she is getting about 4-6 hours a day out of her cage but usually it's about 3-4 when school starts back up. All this negative behavior started after moving and during our summer vacation while getting plenty of the out of cage time. She follows a dawn to dusk schedule but still likes her occasional hour-ish nap. Thought I would mention those things as well!
Citrussunconure
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: 1 sun conure
Flight: No

Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Cage Cleaner » Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:26 pm

Gl
Last edited by Cage Cleaner on Sun Apr 26, 2020 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Citrussunconure » Mon Aug 01, 2016 7:09 pm

Unfortunately I think not clipping the wings is just too dangerous at our house. We have two dogs and a cat. The dogs are actually scared of her and the cat doesn't prey on her necessarily but I think if left alone together it might be bad.

I didn't know quite how long it might take for her to adjust to the move but if it's 2-3 months then I might just wait it out and then be more worried then.

She by no means draws blood or takes skin but it hurts when she nips. I know she could bite harder if she wanted to because she has to people in the past with someone who tried to pet her when I wasn't in the room and told them not to (y'all know the type) anyway lol She is stick trained but we have used the stick in quite sometime so maybe I need to got back to that when working with her? I just don't know how to avoid the biting. It just seems that sometimes she'll hop up no problem and other times she wants to bite even if I go about it the exact same way.
Citrussunconure
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: 1 sun conure
Flight: No

Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Cage Cleaner » Mon Aug 01, 2016 10:00 pm

Good luck.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Wolf » Tue Aug 02, 2016 7:34 am

I have 7 birds ranging in size from parrotlets to an amazon, I have 3 dogs of which two are in the100 lb. range and the third is a hyper boxer and I also have 7 cats. I would not even consider having a clipped bird in my house as it would deprive the bird of its only means of escape if one of the cats or doges did not listen or if I could not move fast enough to protect it.

Although I think most of the nips that you are receiving are related to your move and will pass soon enough, Your bird is also approaching puberty and that may be beginning to affect its behavior. With the modern diets, especially with those that include feeding pellets there seems to be a trend towards our birds to mature at an earlier time than what is normal. By this, I mean that birds that do not usually go into puberty until they are about 2 years old have been starting puberty at as early of an age as 18 months.
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Citrussunconure » Tue Aug 02, 2016 8:42 am

I never thought about the flying as a way to escape. I will think about not clipping her.

I didn't know that about the food. The vet had told me she was getting all the nutrients she needed from pellets and that if she didn't like fresh foods not to force it to much but to just keep trying every now and then. Is this wrong? Should I not be feeding pellets? I don't want to force her into puberty early.
Citrussunconure
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: 1 sun conure
Flight: No

Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Pajarita » Tue Aug 02, 2016 11:04 am

Welcome to the forum! I think that this change is due only in part to the move, I think that, sooner or later, you were going to have this problem. The reason for this is that you are feeding way too much protein (this makes them hormonal and the soy in pellets makes it worse as it has estrogenic side-effects -that's why soy is good for menopausal women). I know that the greatest majority of vets recommend free-feeding pellets but the truth is that vets do not study parrot nutrition. If they did, they would not recommend pellets be free-fed as the bird always end up getting too much protein and fat with them. Sun conures, like all other South American birds, are great eaters of produce - they also require a much lower protein than African birds. I don't feed pellets at all because all my research on their natural diets (over 20 years of it) indicate that they are not the best dietary option for them (I can elaborate, if you wish) but, if you have your heart set on them, you can feed them for dinner and feed fresh food for breakfast. My birds eat gloop with raw produce for breakfast and all day picking and a good quality mix of seeds and nuts for dinner.

The other thing you mentioned is that she is now biting your fingers when you do laddering - and I am not surprised as laddering is now considered a flooding technique and no longer recommended. And, I would imagine that, for a clipped bird that cannot get away on its own, the whole exercise is extremely frustrating (exasperating?).

Also, you say that she is on a dawn to dusk schedule ( :thumbsup: ) but does this include at least one hour of twilight with no artificial light at all to interfere? Because it's the pure (meaning without artificial lights at all) twilight that triggers the 'on and off buttons' in her 'internal clock'. Covering and uncovering the cage at these times without the full exposure to twilight doesn't work for them. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, I am uncovering the cages at 5:30 am when the day is bright and at 5:45 am when the day is gray and covering them at 8:30 pm this time of the year BUT I turn on their overhead lights at 8:30 or 9 am and off at 5 pm because I like them to have a longish time with what I call 'poor' light before I turn on the full spectrum that has the same specs as noon light (too many hours of 'noon' light are not good either).
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Citrussunconure » Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:00 pm

I think the vet had suggested t because she wouldn't eat the fresh food and she was a little thin so she said not to worry about it. She likes watermelon and that's about it. She does like Millet and nutriberries. Will that substitute in somethings she needs?

And I didn't even know about the light thing. During the school year she wakes up with me at 5:30 and I leave around 6:30 and leave her cage uncovered while I'm gone. Then I get home around 5-5:30 most times and let her out and we play until around 7-7:30 when she starts getting tired and crawls in my shirt to go to sleep so I let her cuddle or put her to bed and cover her cage until the morning.
Citrussunconure
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Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: 1 sun conure
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Re: Sun Conure started biting after moving

Postby Cage Cleaner » Tue Aug 02, 2016 2:33 pm

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Last edited by Cage Cleaner on Sun Apr 26, 2020 1:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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