by Pajarita » Fri Jan 05, 2018 11:31 am
No, they don't change gender. There are animals that do but they are fish, frogs, slugs, etc not birds. What birds have been known to do, although it is VERY rare, is to reproduce without a mate [it's called parthenogenesis - look it up, it's super interesting!].
Now, you mention sleep and yes, you are right -well, up to a point because it's not sleep by itself, it's the exposure to light. Birds need to follow a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk - this means that the bird wakes up with the light of dawn [no artificial lights on] and goes to sleep with the light of dusk [again, no artificial lights should be on during this period or it doesn't work]. Turning on a light before the sun is high in the sky or keeping it on after the sun is halfway down to the horizon in the evening screws up their endocrine system and they end up producing sexual hormones all year round which is VERY bad for them [look up avian photoperiodism and you'll see].
Now, as to the conure mix, if this means seeds, nuts, pellets, etc. I hope that you are not filling up a bowl in the morning and leaving it there all day long because he will end up eating way too much protein this way [conures don't find high protein food all the time in the wild]. I've had sun conures, jendays and sundays as well as nandays, quakers, GCCs, etc and fed them all the same thing: gloop and raw produce for breakfast and all day picking and a measured portion of a low protein seed mix [budgie during the cold months and cockatiel during the warm] for dinner.