I'm not sure what's wrong

[rushsbird]

My 3 1/2 month old sun conure was brought home nearly 2 weeks ago, he bonded with everyone in the family, I spend the most amount of time with him so I know his behaviour very well.. When we first brought him home he had a triangle shaped bed thing hanging in the cage but he got really aggressive and stayed in the cage and would not let anyone touch him, so we took it out. Eventually we put it back in for him. Every night he slept on top of it on one foot. He was also not completely weened onto the pellets, the breeder had him in seeds. Then two days ago he was acting very weird he seemed to be very tired and sort of weak, so we took his temperature and he was at 101 Fahrenheit, so we monitored him for the day, we have him only seeds to see if that was the problem and that night he was at 103.9 Fahrenheit so he was back to normal. Yesterday he got aggressive and would bite me and my dad anytime that we tried to take him out of his cage, so we took the triangle bed out again. This morning (like every morning) I came down, cut up some apple and fed it to him, everything was great and normal again. I got home from school and my mom told me that he flew into the window but not very hard.. I went to go get him out of his cage, brought him to his perch, I fed him some apple then he flew back to his cage to eat his seeds and pellets. Since he flew back he won't let me touch him without screaming or flying around his cage or trying to bite me, I don't know what happening but his behaviour is scaring me. My family has had a rough month, we had 2 pineapple conures, one passed away in a tragic event and the other was acting very lethargic and moments later had a stroke and passed in my hands. (I was home alone for the stroke and I'm only 18 so I'm still traumatized) I just don't want anything to happen to the sun conure we have now named Jax.

[Wolf]

Hi and welcome to the forum. I would really appreciate it if when you have time if you would introduce yourself and your bird to us in the introduction section and tell us as much as you can about your current bird, including pictures if you can figure out how to post them. Also knowing what the birds diet is as well as its sleeping and activity schedules are would be very helpful in helping you with any question concerning your bird. Now you don't have to do the introduction thing if you don't want to, but it could be helpful.

May I ask for more information concerning the two other birds that passed especially the one that you say had a stroke, which is possible but unless a necropsy was performed to establish the actual cause of death, it seems that you are guessing, I could be wrong about that. The reason that I am concerned about that bird is that if it had died from a disease, some of them are very fast acting, it could still be hanging around and may have had something to do with the lethargic spell that this bird had recently, it kind of depends on how long ago the other bird passed, but does need to be considered. For that reason I would suggest that if you have not already done so that this bird go to the vet for a diagnostic work up including blood panels.

Despite the fact that I really do not like pellets, I really do not think that they had anything to do with this birds reaction, however, I would not rule out a food related cause without knowing the bird full daily diet at this time. There are some foods that we eat that are toxic to our birds and if he was given some of any of them then he could very well have had a bad reaction to it.

On to the rest of what you have mentioned in this post. The first thing that I really have to say is that it is unlikely for the bird to have bonded to one person, let alone several people in just a 2 week span of time as it has not even had enough time to adjust to its new environment much less to learn to trust any strange humans enough to begin the bonding process and my statements about this are being verified by the birds current actions and behaviors toward you. Let us face the fact that you are moving much faster than your bird is able to cope with and as a result the bird is terrified of you. For this reason I would suggest that you stop trying to handle the bird right now and let's back up to giving the bird a bit of time without any demands placed on it to interact with anyone so that it can begin to relax and start adjusting to its new home and then we can start all over and introduce yourself to your bird properly and start on the single most important thing that you can do ,which is to earn this birds trust.

I am not saying any of this as a put down, but as a means of explaining the biggest issues and reasons for the birds behaviors so that we can back off and fix this as quickly as possible so that you can have the relationship with him that it appears to me that you want. We all had to start with little to no experience and we have all made some big mistakes, not to mention that since no one knows enough about these birds, I expect that we are still making some mistakes.

[Pajarita]

First of all, please understand that we are not trying to be rude or put you down but you seem to have a few wrong ideas about birds.

First of all, birds body temperature is, average, 105 F not 103F BUT you should NEVER EVER EVER EVER take their temperature internally - which is the only way you can actually do it. Sticking a thermometer in a birds' booty is a complete NO-NO, so much so that not even avian vets do it. If your bird really had a temperature of 100F, he is VERY sick and you need to take him to an avian vet ASAP (usual causes are chronic infection, liver or kidney failure, diabetes, etc -none of them are good, my dear).

Secondly, if you had birds that died from unexplained causes recently and precautions were not taken (throw away the cage, disinfect environment completely, etc) there is a strong possibility that this bird caught whatever they had so, again, he needs to go to an avian vet.

Third, like Wolf said, pellets would not have made him sick but, as his age (he is still a baby), he needs to be eating soft food served warm and fresh twice a day. Birds look as if they are fully grown but, in reality, they are not until they become sexually mature and, for a sun conure, that means 2 years old.

[seagoatdeb]

My 3 1/2 month old sun conure was brought home nearly 2 weeks ago, he bonded with everyone in the family, I spend the most amount of time with him so I know his behaviour very well.. When we first brought him home he had a triangle shaped bed thing hanging in the cage but he got really aggressive and stayed in the cage and would not let anyone touch him, so we took it out. Eventually we put it back in for him. Every night he slept on top of it on one foot. He was also not completely weened onto the pellets, the breeder had him in seeds. Then two days ago he was acting very weird he seemed to be very tired and sort of weak, so we took his temperature and he was at 101 Fahrenheit, so we monitored him for the day, we have him only seeds to see if that was the problem and that night he was at 103.9 Fahrenheit so he was back to normal. Yesterday he got aggressive and would bite me and my dad anytime that we tried to take him out of his cage, so we took the triangle bed out again. This morning (like every morning) I came down, cut up some apple and fed it to him, everything was great and normal again. I got home from school and my mom told me that he flew into the window but not very hard.. I went to go get him out of his cage, brought him to his perch, I fed him some apple then he flew back to his cage to eat his seeds and pellets. Since he flew back he won't let me touch him without screaming or flying around his cage or trying to bite me, I don't know what happening but his behaviour is scaring me. My family has had a rough month, we had 2 pineapple conures, one passed away in a tragic event and the other was acting very lethargic and moments later had a stroke and passed in my hands. (I was home alone for the stroke and I'm only 18 so I'm still traumatized) I just don't want anything to happen to the sun conure we have now named Jax.

Your parrots behavior in the beginning was the "honeymoon" period and now is the most important time to get real communication going. it takes time, and your parrot will want time to himself and as long as he is allowing you to interact with him things will improve. Conures will get agressive sometimes, especially when they are past the honeymoon and trying to see how they fit in to the flock and how things work in this new flock. Try to be patient. When he is ready, learn to let him know when his touching you with his beak is too hard.

[Wolf]

As much as I dislike doctors, which includes vets, I still think that your bird needs to see the vet and at the very least have a basic blood panel pulled to establish a baseline for him and to have him check to see if he may have been exposed to whatever caused the death of your other bird. This is a decision that you have to make and if I go further than this with it, it could be misconstrued, so I will not say it again about this.

Both Pajarita and Seagoatdeb have much more experience with parrots than I do and are more knowledgeable, so I would suggest that you give their suggestions some serious consideration.

[seagoatdeb]

By all means if the parrot has not had his first vet check then he should have one. It is very commmon when you have lost some parrots, to be traumatized and be afraid they are fragile. We love them and it is hard to get over.

Now you did not say how one of the parrots died, so one thing you could do is to make sure that all metals they can chew on including, the metal parts that attach toys are stainless steel. That way if heavy metal poisoning had made the second parrot ill you can remove that concern. Also make sure all wood is on the safe wood list for parrots.

But other than that, it takes time and two weeks is just a honey moon and now the real socializing into your flock begins.

[Pajarita]

Seagoatdeb, the OP stated that he had two conures that passed away days from each other within a month of acquiring the new bird and that the bird was lethargic and had a very low body temperature - that was my main concern and thus, my reply.

[seagoatdeb]

Seagoatdeb, the OP stated that he had two conures that passed away days from each other within a month of acquiring the new bird and that the bird was lethargic and had a very low body temperature - that was my main concern and thus, my reply.

OP said he got the new parrot 2 weeks ago and that his family has had a rough month, so it looked to me like the two parrots had died before this new one came. I guess the op will clear it up.

[Wolf]

I can't tell from the OP post if the two pineapple conures died before or after they got the Sun conure. there is the possibility of an overlap but I think that first they lost the two pineapple conures and then got the Sun conure about 2 weeks ago. There is really not much to go on, but I think that it may be a moot point. If they had a difficult month and lost the conures and then got the sun conure or if there was an overlap of these events, the timeline still makes the illness that caused the death of the one pineapple, a possible cause for the sun conures apparent brush with illness. They may or may not be related, I can't tell, but it does worry me.

[seagoatdeb]

I can't tell from the OP post if the two pineapple conures died before or after they got the Sun conure. there is the possibility of an overlap but I think that first they lost the two pineapple conures and then got the Sun conure about 2 weeks ago. There is really not much to go on, but I think that it may be a moot point. If they had a difficult month and lost the conures and then got the sun conure or if there was an overlap of these events, the timeline still makes the illness that caused the death of the one pineapple, a possible cause for the sun conures apparent brush with illness. They may or may not be related, I can't tell, but it does worry me.

It worries me too. We will have to wait for more info, because one parrot died in a tragic way, so sounds like an accidient and the other died from a stroke, they said and we dont know how old the parrot was.