conure questions

[kevinp]

hello everyone i have a few questions about greencheeked conures.
after my parrotlet jake passed away a couple of weeks ago, i thought i would start looking for another parrot. i have found a very good gcc breeder in the uk, whos birds should be nesting oct/nov so this gives me plenty of time to get things ready, iam in no hurry. the birds he sells are cuddly tame and very well socilized.

i keep budgies who fly free in the flat/appartment every day and weekend, how do your conures get along with other birds.

i love reading can you recommend any good conure books.

the main question i want to ask is about harness training, ive not had a lot of luck asking this on uk boards as not many people seem to do this or they give up.also some people have told me that the gcc is too small to wear a harness, is this true?

the breeder iam getting the bird from hasnt at this point started harness training his birds, but its something hes looking into.

so if youve trained your conures to wear a harness, how well did it go, easy? hard? did you give up?

this is proberbly the first in a lot of questions

[stepht25]

Sorry for the loss of your parrotlet.

I'm a new conure owner - have had Cosmo (black capped) for a little over a month and Zoey (cinn. gcc) for 3 weeks. I can't really say if they get along withother birds or not. Zoey is still in our bedroom for about another week in quarentine so she hasn't had interaction with our other birds. Cosmo is in the living room and so is Kirby - but they're across the room from each other and don't really seem to pay attention to one another. We bring the other fids out to the living room for part of the day (Skittles and the tiels' cages are in my daughter's room) but they don't really interact with Cosmo. Cosmo had an extreme clip before I got him and he doesn't fly at all. I think he knows it and maybe that's why he doesn't attempt to go visiting to the other birds - but don't know if it would be different if he could fly.

I've been using flightsuits on both Cosmo and Zoey with success. They hate having them put on - and when we first started using them they both would really chew on the flightsuits. But now once it's on they don't really seem to mind them anymore. I just started letting Cosmo and Zoey wear them for a few hours around the house and their cages so they would get used to having them on. I have the size small for both of them - but there is a size - junior small that I have heard fit the GCC's a little better.

HTH! And hope it all makes sense - I've only been awake for 20 minutes. LOL

[Mothi]

I am still new to keeping a GCC. I have had mine for 1.5 months and still hand feeding him. (He is almost weaned now.)

I don't know what books are good since the bird books I own are not all about GCC. They are all about training birds or other bird topic.

I do recommend the flight suit versus the harness though. I have both and I will tell you I had one hell of a time trying to put the harness on Yazhi. The flight suit I still had some trouble, but it was a lot easier to put on him. Below are some pictures of him in his flight suit for the first time yesterday. Btw, his flight suit size is Junior Small.

[stepht25]

Those first 2 pics are so funny!! He's so cute and looks like ham!

Kevin - I forgot you asked about books. I haven't read any of the conure books - there's so much info. on the net that I don't really buy species specific books anymore. I know I've heard there's a great dvd on the Pyrrhuras - I haven't gotten it yet but am planning to. I don't know about electronics - so don't know if it's something you could get and watch or not? (I was thinking different countries sometimes have different formats for videos - but not sure?) Anyway - here's a link to website of a lady in Texas that breeds conures - including the green cheeks and she has the video on her website. http://www.rockportroost.com/b2gvideos.html (that's the link to the page with the video - she has pages with pics of conures and some info. about them.)

http://members.tripod.com/gcch/ here's a link to website dedicated to the green cheeks. Lots of good info. and links.

http://www.pamperedpeeps.com/ Another website I really like. They breed GCC's and have some good articles and great pictures of their birds wearing the flightsuits. They even have a video or 2 of putting flightsuits on.

And of course if you type in Green cheek conures in your search engine you'll get more hits than you could possibly look through!

[Lola Plus 10]

i honestly think flight suits look goofy :P i use a regular feather teather bird harness for Hawk and onnce its over his head its easy to get on, and i can jsut picture how long one of those flight suits would lsat with my 2. the first time i tried with the harness i had my gloves on, i was trying it with Emerald, my hand tame baby girl. oh she hates that thing once its on all she does is roll on the ground hanging onto it. but Hawk my wild boy doesnt have a care in the world for it. ones its on he thinks the leash that hangs off it is a toy! he has the blast playing with the leash, he doesnt go anywheres out of his cage now without that harness on. and really all i need is 1 harness because wherever hawk goes, Emmy goes. They are not to small to wear a harness, though smaller then cockatiels, the petite fits them perfectly.

I found the Conure Handbook and any other conure book i was able to find when i looked for my guys, i simply borrowed it from the library, read it dozens of times before it had to go back, and photocopied the 1 main page on fruits and veggies so people know what their allowed to give my guys.

Concider looking at rescues near by for a conure first.

[Conure & Macaw Mom]

Those pics are so cute with the flight suits. Mine are in the mail & should be here any day now. Mine are the plain green color. They had a special going on with the suit, leash, etc. but only in green. Thats ok, the color will match Romeo. Crystal

[stepht25]

Hawk is adorable! I tried harnesses with my other birds - but I seemed to be harness challenged and had the worst time getting them on right. I should have known better - I have harnesses for my chi's and they wear them alot - and I still get confused everytime I have to put them on! LOL The flightsuit may look kind of funny - but I can get them on!

[Carolsclan]

Im also new to conures.. Snoopy is a sun conure , never tried a flight suit, i doubt I can get them here , couldnt get a happy hut

Snoopy is very keen to chat to my lovebirds he gets all coy, but they just want to bite him.

[Valo's Moirana]

Love the pics... i'm considering getting a harness too for valo, but haven't gotten around to it yet. also, fall's moving in here so we might have to wait till spring again....

[Lola Plus 10]

nah their quite easy to figure out :P too us a while to find the perfect spot for the buckle that does it up and then it fir perfectly :) lola wears a Kitten harness when we go out so no harness problems here.
Except emmy still doesnt like them