Your situation sounds identical to mine. I purchased my first dusky from Petco last summer and immediately knew that I wanted to get another bird. Petco had this gorgeous gold crowned conure and had also brought in another dusky. I wanted to interact with the gold crowned conure, but he freaked out, flapping his wings and trying his best to avoid interacting with us. So I turned to the dusky who came out and snuggled right into my neck. So...personality won out over beauty, as I chose to get the dusky.

The people who are employed at our Petco aren't bird savvy to say the least. They don't know how to interact with the birds, nor do they know how to keep them busy by providing them with the proper number of enrichment toys. My guess is that your Petco setup could be similar to ours. The birds lose out because of it.

Both my duskies are packed full of personality. Like any conure, they can have their nippy moments, but overall it isn't bad. Even if they nip, they have never broken our skin.

Our duskies kiss us all the time. They love to snuggle and entertain us non stop. Duskies may not be the most beautiful conures out there, but they certainly are wonderful personality-wise.

My vote is for the dusky. You won't regret it!

Benton, are you in Wilmington, NC? Are you willing to drive a bit for a friendly bird? If you are in NC & can go a ways to find the right bird, check out Petswharehouse in Jacksonville. They always seem to have friendly conures, that's why my bf fell for them. They keep most their smaller parrots in open boxes so they are pretty much handled daily by multiple people.

Yes, I'm in Wilmington. Thanks for the tip! Jacksonville is about an hour to the north, so that's in pretty easy driving range, I'll definitely check them out. Thanks again!

It helps to understand if the bird is cage aggressive, food aggressive, toy aggressive or if he/she is afraid.

Aggressive - the bird goes out of their way to attack
Fear - bird tries their best to avoid you and bites as a last resort

I know that my conure can be food aggressive with his dish inside the cage, but he's not cage aggressive. In fact, he'd rather be with me than inside his cage! Yet, if I'm inside his cage (cleaning), he'd rather hang with me! Of course, there are times when he's just not in the mood for handling and he'll act out towards me.


If a bird is aggressive while inside the cage, you can cue them to station. This can help you to change food and toys while the bird is inside the cage. Otherwise, remove them from the cage prior to messing with the contents of the cage.

Here's some good articles on stationing!
Stationing « Lara Joseph
http://www.parrots.org/pdfs/all_abou...n%20parrot.pdf (mostly last page)
Stationing | Heckled By Parrots
How to Train Your Bird to

An excellent distinction there. The bird I witnessed was definitely in evasion mode, so it was fear, not aggression. Poor little guy. I may be bringing him home as soon as tomorrow though! Excited, hope everything goes how I need to to so it can happen.