Two new GCC's male/female help

I just got two Green cheek Conures from a lady who couldn't take care of them any longer.

One is a yellow-sided female (according to her) and the other is a "regular" green cheek male

The woman I got them from bought them with the intention of breeding them, they were hand-fed but don't seem to have been handled much.

They are currently 7months old and pretty flighty when I put my hand into the cage. I have had them only a few days now [4]

They are both clipped and seem very bonded to one another

I used a thick glove to take them out of the cage to try to hold them and the female will sit on my hand for a minute or so and then attempt to climb up my shirt and on to my shoulder. When i go to retrieve her off of my shoulder and push just abover her feet she just keeps falling backwords instead of stepping up on to my hand and she continually tries to climb up on to my shoulder.

I took the male out once and he relentlessly bit my glove even after releasing him, and then flapped out of my hand and onto the floor where he ran around crazily.

I had a few questions as I have never raised conures before and have only really had experience with fully tame cockatiels.

I have a very large "flight cage" that sits in my room where the two conures are currently housed, and a smaller white cage on a stand where I keep my two cockatiels.

Do I need to seperate my conures to be able to bond with and tame them? If I do seperate them into different cages, should I keep them in the same room? Can I keep them in the same room but seperate cages and still be effective?

Also if I seperate them into different cages and get them tame, would I then be able to put them back together into the big cage with a nesting box [When they become the proper reproductive age (12-14months from what I read)] and will they still be able to bond and reproduce as it seems they have bonded now?

The conures seemed attatched at the hip to each other in the big cage. Anywhere and Everywhere the male goes the female follows and they perch next to each other and lean on one another.

Any advice on taming and bonding my conures? I read of how cuddly and friendly the conures can be and I want to maximize my chances of success with both birds as my cockatiels are definitely not the cuddly type although they do enjoy being with me.

Also while I have the female out, she tolerates me rubbing her back and scratching her neck.

I do have another spare cage in which I can put one of the conures.
I could also put each conure in a smaller cage, and the cockatiels in the large cage [the cockatiels are both in a smaller (but adequate) cage]


Any help on the best solution for bonding with and taming my conures and advice or tips for what to do with the cages/seperation etc.
As well as your preferred method for taming them would be VERY VERY much appreciated!

Thanks,

Austin

Also any advice on a daily blend of fruits/veggies to give to my conures would be greatly appreciated (kind of like a good average blend and what fruits/veggies to put in)

First of all, if you are wanting to win these birds trust, grabbing them and pulling them out of the cage is NOT the way to do it.

I took the male out once and he relentlessly bit my glove even after releasing him, and then flapped out of my hand and onto the floor where he ran around crazily.

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He did this because he was scared. Terrified birds tend to lash out and try to escape. He was in fight or flight mode. Fighting did not work, so he took to flight, aka escape mode. It's what animals do when they think they are in danger of harm.

I used a thick glove to take them out of the cage to try to hold them and the female will sit on my hand for a minute or so and then attempt to climb up my shirt and on to my shoulder. When i go to retrieve her off of my shoulder and push just abover her feet she just keeps falling backwords instead of stepping up on to my hand and she continually tries to climb up on to my shoulder.

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She is not stepping up because she does not want to be on your hand. She may not be as scared as the male is, but she is still not secure! She seems more tolerant and tame then the male though, so if you can win her over the male may follow her lead with a bit of encouragement.

Please in future try more gentle methods. Open the cage door and tempt them out with treats so they associate you with good things (like snacks!) and will want to come to you. Grabbing them is only making them see you as something terrifying. they don't think like us, and if they come to see you as a threat that will be hard to undo. You would not like a giant grabbing you and dragging you out of your home, not knowing what is happening and what may happen to you, and neither do they.

If you must get them out, and you can't tempt them out with nice things, and they are scared of your hand, use a stick. Put it in front of them and gently get them to hop onto it. Then pull it out the door with the bird on it. Once you have them trained with the stick you can move onto hands. Associate yourself with good things, not grabbing and scary experiences!

Phew. Now that that is said.

I do not know about separating them, especially if you plan to breed them in the future. They seem to be bonded. But I'll leave that one to the bird breeders who have experience with pairs. Before deciding to breed them, I would check with the previous owner to make sure they are not related. Two birds of the same age from the same source may have come from the same clutch.

As for diet, most here feed pellets and assorted fruit and veg. Personally I go for a custom 'seed' mix (more like a nut/seed/grain mix) reccomended by my vet and mixed myself, with added pellets (Tropican, it is an extruded feed and very nutritional), and assorted fruit and veg with lots of leafy greens. My conure also gets nectar/pollen on occasion (lorikeet fruit blocks) and sometimes even bird edible flowers (Organic, From a parrot breeder who grows and feeds them) as a treat, which do make up a component of their diet in the wild. What are your GCC on currently? If you wished to change their diet, it will have to be gradual.

They are currently on the zupreem fruity pellet diet, and I was wanting ton introduce daily fruits and veggies to them and was hoping to find out the best blend.

The birds came in a small cramped cage when I got them so I used a wash cloth to get them out of the "bad" cage and put them into the new big "good" cage and that was the only experience with handling them that I have had so far (I didn't put them straight into the new cage) but instead tried to let them sit on my hand for a minute or so

Thanks for the feedback!

Oh! Sorry for the rant then, I thought you had been grabbing them out of the cage! Now I feel silly.

Glad to hear they have a nice big cage now though.

I'm not familiar with Zupreem, I know others here do feed it, so they would be the ones to ask. With pellets you should look for a low salt, low sugar, natural based extruded feed or cold pressed (both hold nutrition better then traditional feed processing methods) kind. Just grab your pellets, turn to the ingredients list and have a quick look. Ingredients are listed from highest % to lowest % used. You should be able to get a general overview of the feed contents from that. Avoid filler ingredients (there will always be some, but you dont want them being the bulk of the feed) which are low in nutrition (like 'corn meal' which tends to be made from soy dregs and leftovers. Crushed corn or 'whole corn meal' would be more nutritional) and aim for high quality feeds. Any ingredients you do not know of, a quick google should tell you what they are. Many of them will be compounds high in vit/mins used for that purpose, so don't be scared away by long artificial sounding names.

I always recommend people steer clear of Kaytee and Lafeber as they contain large amounts of ethoxyquin (a carcinogen), artificial preservatives, colourings and lots of sugar. They are ok as treats, but I would not recommend them as a staple. Roudybush is another I would not use as a staple, as they use cheap ingredients like tartaric acid that can sometimes be unsafe. It also uses many low quality filler ingredients. That said, these feeds would provide adequate nutrition, better then a seed only diet anyway, but there are better feeds out there for our feathered buddies. Also a good idea to avoid where possible feeds with products like fish meal or animal protein in them (particularly if sourced from birds) as they can easily be contaminated.

One of my favourite pellets is Tropican, it's an extruded feed and every batch is pathogen, toxin and nutrition tested (Good stuff to hear if you, like me, had a pet poisoned by commercial pet food before!) and it is a favourite of avian vets. It's also one of the few with actual testing behind it (the nutritional needs of our captive birds are still poorly understood, and even fewer pellets and feeds have actually undergone adequate trials) and the commercial variety is concentrated enough to be fed with large amounts of other foods, which is good as I only use it as a supplement feed to pick up any areas I may have missed. Another good one, also avian vet recommended, is Harrisons which I believe has similar standards. The other one of the 'golden trio' of parrot feeds generally backed by vets is Foundation formula. Another that has great reviews and that is very open and honest on ingredients is Dr Harveys, which actually had a member of the forums call once, and Harvey himself was happy to answer her queries. They are also very open and honest about their food, and it is veterinarian formulated, and not a feed designed for cheap, mass production (sacrificing quality in the process) and quick profits like Kaytee etc is.

I'll leave it at that, because otherwise I'll go on for pages and start really getting crazy about bird food, but a good thread on picking pellets and processed feeds is here if your interested in a bit more. It's a good quick read for 101 in pellets
http://www.parrotforums.com/conures/14310-do-you-know-whats-your-birds-food.html
Since we can't see what is in a pellet mix, we need to read the ingredients to know.

As for fruits and veg, Apples are always a hit with my little guy. Broccoli for vit K is another one. Oranges in moderate amounts (lots of vit c but acidic) and he goes crazy for mangos, capsicum, peas, corn, bean, anything really actually. He's not overly picky though. I usually make up 2-3 days worth of fresh fruit and veg (Todays mix was the last of the brocolli, carrot, apple and capsicum batch. Tomorrow I'm making a pear, mango, bok choy and pea and corn batch for him) label it with the day it was made and feed it morning and night (dispose of any left over in the cage after a few hours to prevent spoilage). This way I am not cutting up fruit and veg every morning, and instead of, say, apple one day, orange the next, he gets a mix every day that changes every few days. My basic recipe for each mix is something high in vit K (leafy greens, brocolli, etc, important for conures as they are prone to vit K deficiencies and blood clotting issues as a result) + something high in vit C (Carrot, orange, etc) + a favourite treat (apple, mango, nectarine, pear) and then whatever else I have around.

In the wild conures are believed to digest a lot of leafy green matter, fruit (and veg), nuts, seeds, occasionally insects (don't worry though, your guys get more then enough protein from their pellets to need these!) and when they can get them, sometimes flowers. So, that's what we should try to feed! Leafy greens like bok choy, spinach, dandelion greens to substitute for green matter. Fruits like apples and mangos and all those wonderful things, along with fresh veggies like carrots, corn, and sweet potato is a huge hit with most birds. The best thing to do is google up a list of safe bird fruits and veg and experiment! And, always try to go for pesticide free produce.

The Zupreem pellet is fine. Also offer them some fruit and more veggies. They can also have some multi-grain bread, pasta and rice. Some beans or cooked chicken can provide protein. I would also provide a cuttle bone or mineral block for calcium. The female especially will need it, particularly if they do breed.

I agree it would not be good to separate them if you plan on breeding.

Amber has offered you very good advice already on trying to tame them. Breeder birds may never be "pets" though.

Soo what if I want to just keep them as "pets"? Should I seperate them into different cages to tame them? Or try to do it with them both in the same cage? Also I read about a method of getting them used to hands by fasting them for around 4-5 hours and then offering their pellets from my hand slowly getting them used to my hand being in the cage, and progress to making them step onto my hand to get the food and then bringing my free hand towards them in succession (slowly progressing of course). What does everyone think of this method?

What is your Guy's take on it? They are around eight months old now so too early to breed. Should I keep them and breed them them raise one of the chicks as a "pet "? Or try to tame them and keep them as pets, or try to tame them and let them breed once they reach age? Should I seperate them. If I just want to keep them as pets? They seem to be very very strongly bonded so I'm wondering if it will be hard to tame them if possible at. All

I've never tried separating bonded birds so I'm not the best person here to advise. You might get the best answers calling breeders. Sometimes when birds don't mate bond, breeders will separate them and try to turn them back into pets. Not all bonded birds are mate bonded though. Some never mate but want to spend their lives together anyway.

You could try separating them and working with them individually. If it doesn't work out, then the kindest thing might be to let them be together.

Personally I'd leave them together for now (though I've only ever worked with one bonding/bonded pair before and failed miserably, so take this as you will ) and try to work with them. The female seems more receptive and less freaked out by people based on your description, so I would try to bribe her over to your side first (still working with the make while doing this of course though) in the hopes that the more flighty male will follow her lead. If you can't make any progress with them together then you could look into separating them

Errr, ignore this post, I meant to post in another thread and posted here! Sorry guys! I'm not sure how to remove a post, but if any mods see this, feel free to do so