Navre wrote:There is also a little greencheeked conure named Squeaky. He doesn't seem to like the rescue and has been wrecking his wing feathers. I have tried working with him, but so far he just bites me, and bites me like he means it.
This guy jumped onto my hand the other day when I was cleaning his cage. I figured that this was progress. He sat there on my hand, just outside the cage door for a bit, and then started biting my hand over and over. I didn't want to brush him off or startle him, so I let him keep biting. He bit me about 10 times and then seemed to tire of it. He looked at me for about 30 seconds and then started biting again. Hard. I didn't want to put him back in the cage because I figured that would teach that if he bit he got to go back, so I just waited him out. When he stopped the second time, I presented my left hand and asked him to step up. He did, much to my amazement. He then jumped back onto/into the cage.
I had a bunch of pinholes in my hand, but he is a little bird and didn't do much damage. It looked like I had run my hand through a raspberry bush.
I'm reminded of this because I was just trying to figure out where all these small, triangular-shaped bruises on my hand had come from.
One of the other volunteers, Josh, seems to have a good rapport with Squeaky, but I don't think he is in a position to adopt him. Squeaky is an odd duck. He always comes to the front of the cage, wants interaction, gives no obvious signs that he is going to bite (eyes are too dark to see if he is pinning), but then bites like he means it. And he doesn't bother with the bluffs or the things the other conures do, like hitting your hand with their beaks. He goes right for the chomp. It seems like he will ultimately be easier to deal with than the birds who are scared and run away.