by Pajarita » Sun Dec 01, 2019 10:35 am
Welcome to the forum, Jesse and Sunny! She needs to have company and that's why she wants to be with people - but she doesn't trust you or love you and that's why she doesn't want you to touch her.
A month is nothing to a rehomed parrot, it takes them about three months to come out of their honeymoon period and two years to actually feel completely at home in its new home but this doesn't mean that it will take her two years to love you. How long that takes and whether this ever happens or not is up to you because it is up to you to gain her trust and love. They are not like dogs that would love any human that treats them with kindness, they need to be won over. It's really not that hard, it just takes time, patience and understanding them. And the first thing you need to do is to stop trying to touch her immediately because all you are doing is aggravating her and teaching her that you cannot be trusted to respect her wishes or that you are not 'listening' to her.
Let her do what she wants without interfering. Open her cage at dawn and walk away so she can come out on her own if and when she wants to. If she flies to your shoulder, just let her ride it without asking her for anything. You now need to prove to her that your insisting on touching her when she did not wanted you to was a misunderstanding, a fluke that will not be repeated. Keep her at a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk, feed her a fresh food diet (do not free-feed any protein food), spend as much time as you can in the same room as she is, talk, sing, whistle to her and, every now and then, offer her a treat but, if she doesn't take it from your fingers, just leave it where she can reach it and walk away because this is not a reward or a bribe, it's a gift from you to her.
Now, I need to tell you one more thing. Going by what you write is her usual reaction to hands near her (the hissing, backing up, biting and, most telling, her saying "Stop it!), I am afraid that the person who raised her had really no business getting a baby bird because, obviously, she was not treated right and was taught that people's hands are not to be trusted (I am not saying the person was mean to her or that he/she did not love her but loving a bird does not mean you will be willing and able to care for it the right way). This was made worse by your trying to touch her when she did not want it because this reinforced what she had learned about humans in her original home so you are now starting from a negative position instead of just zero BUT it does not mean she will always feel this way, it just means that it will take longer. Sun conures are very affectionate birds (although I am afraid that, in my personal experience, not big cuddlers) and if you do everything right, she will love you (or whoever she chooses in your household as her human) to pieces for many years to come.