[Fred Jonest]

Hi, new guy on this board. New Conure owner also. Here's our story of the first 2 days:

We are the proud owners of a four month old Dusky Conure. We only have
him now for about 48 hours actually. Anyhow today I went out and closed his cage because I didn't want to leave him out
alone with housekeeper, so as not to leave her responsible for him.
When I returned 2 hours later, I discovered that he had gotten his
toes trapped in the wire wall of his cage. :(

We have an Italian made bird cage (I think more of a parakeet cage,
but quite large) with a garage-door style front door. This garage door
opens 90 degrees to form a shelf sticking out of the cage with a
perch. The door wall is normal bird cage wall style with horizontal
and vertical metal wires. Near the junction of two of these, there
comes out another wire, which forms part of the base of the perch of
this garage door/shelf thing. So there are several junctions of wire
here quite close together.

He managed to get his toes wrapped around this spot of the cage and
sort of twisted around and tangled and two of his toes/toenails were
stuck--it looked fairly painful although he was quiet. I managed
fairly easily to free his toes. He then stood on just the other foot,
tucked his hurt one up into his belly and went to sleep.

He actually slept for a few hours, like 3. He did at one point climb
up to the top of his cage to sit and sleep there. After another hour,
he finally decided he wanted to be picked up and he's now using both
feet normally and eating apples and seeds. I have do not think any
damage was done to his foot, as he appears to be walking normally now.

I also think he was quite tired--we only sat down last night to read
up on Conures and learned that they need from 11-14 hours of sleep a
day, presumably close to 14 for a baby like ours. With four small
human children of our own who are old enough to walk and talk and get
excited over a new bird, he didn't get nearly that much sleep his
first two nights here.

We got last night for him a sheet to put on his cage (we never covered
our budgies before and they seemed OK) and I think we will use that.
Is it smart to put his sheet on at 6:30 PM if the kids are going to be
up at 6:30 AM and want to play with him? Presumably he will
*generally* be able to nap in the morning, because most of the family
is out then, but perhaps he prefers to sleep all at once.

Thus far, anyhow, we are very pleased with our little bird and
enjoying him very much. :)

Thanks,
Fred