Advice regarding my two conures

[Katlovesmusic]

Hello! I have read a lot of posts on this forum, but have never actually asked any questions as this has always been a great place to get expert advice. However, I now have a problem that I haven't seen answered anywhere.
I have two conures. I don't know their genders, however, I'm pretty sure Gigi, my yellow-sided is female; unsure of Gizmo (Green cheek), but we refer as male. I've had them housed together for almost a year. They sometimes fight, which is normal, but Gizmo seems very irritated with Gigi daily. He rarely snuggles with her. He pushes her away. If she tries to snuggle, he will often go to another part of the perch or fly to me. When I turn out the light to go to bed, he flies to me every night thinking he can sleep with me. I DON'T LET HIM. He is very unhappy when I make him go back to his cage.
I know the general rule is to not split them up, but Gigi's tale is starting to look rough and Gizmo sometimes plucks her too hard and she squawks in protest. I'm worried that her constant attention is upsetting him. I don't want either of them to be unhappy. I work from home, so they are seldom, if ever, left alone for any length of time.

Has anyone had to separate birds after a hlyear? Could he be breaking up with her? Ugh... I don't know what to do here

Info: Gigi is 2, Gizmo is 2 years and 3 months. I had Gigi from 3 months and I've had Gizmo for just over a year. Both hand raised, however, Gizmo used to be cage protective, but he's not like that with me or my husband anymore .

Thanks for your time

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum, kat, Gigi and Gizmo. I have a 5.5 lb chihuahua mix named Gigi, too (I call her Gigiolina Topolina - topolina meaning female mouse in Italian ) and a cat named Gizmo (he is arriving tomorrow after being abandoned by a neighbor when he moved out).

Now, you are operating under a misconception. It is only bonded pairs that should not be separated and your birds are not bonded. For one thing, three months is way too short a period of time for the birds to bond, it takes them longer than that and the process should never be 'expedited'. They need to make up their own minds about it. And that's why you are having this problem and why they fight - which is NEVER normal for bonded pairs, mind you. Bonded birds never fight. They might squabble a bit over a piece of favorite food (usually the female trying to steal it from the male) but they never fight. Not ever.

For what you tell us, I am suspecting that Gigi was kept a human schedule and free-fed protein food which made her overly hormonal - thus, her insistence on being close to Gizmo. But, because Gizmo is not yet bonded to Gigi, it doesn't want to be with Gigi all the time and resents her insistence.

The solution is easy: you need to put them in separate cages, wait for Gigi to 'lose' the extra hormones and for them to bond to each other before you put them together (they will pretty much do it on their own). Now, Gigi will not stop producing sexual hormones until the fall and then ONLY if you keep them to a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk (make sure it's a whole two hour period because it makes the process faster when you start off with an overly hormonal bird -turning off the light at night does not work because it does not allow for the gradual increase in melatonin as the light decreases or for the special twilight that turns on or off their internal clock) and do not free-feed protein food. Gizmo wants to go with you at night because he is not sleepy and he knows that going into his cage means he is going to have to put up with Insistent Gigi.

When you have a bird that has lived with you alone for some time and has bonded with you, it takes longer for him/her to bond with another bird because it has to 'wean' itself from human attention and learn to enjoy bird attention - and rushing things only makes things harder for both the birds and the humans. It's best to allow them to set their own pace and choices and just observe the process to make sure it's 'pointing' in the right direction. You need to keep the cages very close so they get used to hearing and seeing each other, let them both out at the same time and encourage their interaction with each other, pay extra attention to the 'old' bird while beginning to bond with the 'new' one and, very gradually and very slowly, move toward treating them both equally (and sometimes, you will have to take one step back to your two forward on this so as not to hurt Gizmo's feelings).

You need to look at this process from their point of view. Parrots are not like canaries that would breed with any other canary that is of the opposite gender... they are more like little people and do not like to be imposed on - not by people and not by other birds. They choose who to love, when and how. And they always - ALWAYS- take their own sweet time to decide. I bet that poor Gizmo is very confused right now. You brought an intruder to the home and stuck it in his cage (and you said he was cage-protective so, in reality, you were lucky he did not outright attack poor Gigi) and do not seem to be 'listening' to him when he is showing you as best he can that he does NOT want Gigi there. Be patient, put them in separate cages and go back to square one and, in time and if you do things right (light schedule, diet, etc), it will work out perfectly.

[Katlovesmusic]

Hello Pajarita.

Thank you for your response. I will clarify a couple of things.

1. I had Gigi first, alone for almost a year before getting Gizmo.
2. Rescued Gizmo from someone and had them in separate cages, but in the same room for about 2-3 months before putting them together.
3. Gizmo was really nice to Gigi at first, but was cage aggressive with me and my husband for the first little bit.
4. As for diet, they are fed pellets and fresh veggies and fruits. They also get nutriberries as treats. I don't think that's high protein

It's been almost a year with them sharing the cage and the problem has only recently started. I try to pay attention to their behaviour and they are given free reign over the room. I'm just at a loss for why Gizmo suddenly seems to have changed his mind about her

[Pajarita]

Ahhh, OK. I had read (erroneously) that you had Gigi for only 3 months so let's 're-do' the advice.

But, before we go into anything else, please note that ALL pellets have too much protein for GCCs. If you look at the nutritional values, you will see that the protein value is not fixed, it always reads something like 'higher than' - 'no less than' - 'minimum' - etc. And those minimum values are always around 17% so that means higher than that AND not really knowing how high because, for all you know, it could be 20, 22, 24%. See, the main ingredient in pellets, when it comes to protein, is soy and soy being super cheap, it makes sense to use it in a higher proportion than other, more expensive ingredients. And soy is bad for them. It has estrogenic and goitrogenic side effects (it means it affects sexual and thyroid hormonal production - I have hypothyroidism -slow thyroid- and cannot eat anything made with soy because it would reduce my thyroid function even more). BUT, even if it was exactly 17%, that would still be too high for a bird that eats mainly fruits and a few green seeds. The other problem (there are many) with pellets is how dry they are. Parrots eat a diet that is between 85 and 95% moisture and pellets have a maximum of 10% - and that's bad for their kidneys and liver because parrots are crepuscular feeders and are programmed not to drink during the day (observe them and you will see, they always drink early in the am and pretty much always the same amount of 'sips' every day). PLUS, because they are so dry, they always end up eating too many of them because they only stop when their crop is full and dry stuff does not take up as much space as very wet stuff (put pellets in water and see how much they grow in size). If you have your heart set on feeding pellets, at least feed them only for dinner and then only Tops (the only pellet made without soy and with human grade ingredients). And choose between pellets or nutriberries because both together is even more protein. If you want to give them a treat, give them a little piece of a nut (my GCCs -I have two females- LOVE walnuts and would do anything for a piece of one).

Now, the problem could very well be that Gizmo is not ready to procreate while Gigi is. Two years old is an awkward age for them because they have just become sexually mature and often act up - just like teenagers would. OR it could be that you have two females and Gizmo wants a mate and not a female companion. But, most likely, it's diet and light schedule. You mention turning off the light at night and, as I have stated before, that doesn't really work for birds as they need the exposure to twilight without any artificial light during or before dawn and during or after dusk 'confusing' the situation. If they have not been kept at a strict solar schedule and have been free-fed protein food -especially one made with soy- they are, most likely, both too hormonal. We are already at the beginning of the breeding season in the Northern Hemisphere and tempers are short all around (my birds, included, and they are not free-fed protein food and kept at a super strict solar schedule).

But the advice stands. Whenever a bird is not happy sharing a cage with another bird, they should be separated. There is no two ways about it because even when one does not attack the other, it would still be too stressful for both of them. Gigi because it's frustrated that it cannot get the close relationship it desires and Gizmo because it feels besieged by the unwanted attentions of Gigi - so it reacts negatively. And stress, whether physical or emotional, is to be avoided at all costs with pet birds.

Re-evaluate the diet and the light schedule and separate them and, if everything goes according to plan, you might have the problem solved by fall.

[Katlovesmusic]

Thank you so much. I didn't realize the pellets were so bad for them. I was told 80% pellets and the rest veggies and fruit. I will clearly have to do some adjusting!
I will separate them but keep them in the same room. Then we will see what happens. Thanks again!

[Pajarita]

Yes, the 80/20 is what, for some particular reason, avian vets recommend but avian vets do not study parrot nutrition at all (I have three Avian Medicine books of the kind they use to pass the exam) so the greatest majority of them are just repeating something they were told by the pellet manufacturers. I've had arguments with avian vets about this so many times... I never ask them about a proper diet anymore because they all say the same thing without any thought to what they are saying. I mean, recommending pellets for canaries that are not only natural seed eaters but have been kept and bred by humans very successfully since the 1400's? Why would you feed an animal something unnatural when the natural food of the animal is easily available and better for it? Pellets for ekkies which need a super moist diet, very low in protein and super high in natural fiber (pellets do not have natural fiber)? Pellets for amazons when we have a wonderful study that says that, in the wild, they ONLY consume up to (not more than) 17% protein during breeding season but much lower the rest of the year? The thing about parrots diets is that each species is different so, in reality, there is not such a thing as 'parrot nutrition', you need to go to their dietary ecology, study the flora of the region where they come from, read reports by field biologists, ornithologists and then and only then you can figure out what the proportion of macro nutrients that particular species requires. If you go to Wikipedia or any other site that lists the diet of any species, you are going to find the same thing over and over and over: fruits, buds, seeds and nuts. And it's not that it's a lie because they do eat those things but, if they don't tell you in what proportion each is consumed, you are not really getting the right information. Plus, birds are all seasonal eaters and they never eat the same proportion of things during the year - that's why they all have a specific breeding season: because the food is richer and more plentiful during that time.

Sorry for the rant. Diet is my 'thing'. I have been doing research on their natural diets for over 25 years PLUS I was born and raised in a South American country where we do have parrots AND I have observed parrots feeding the wild in other countries, too (I used to travel a lot) so I take it a bit personally when avian vets give the wrong advice on something they really do not know enough about. They should just say they don't know OR find out more about it.