I am brand new to birds and just adopted a 20 year old conure and have questions

Aloha everyone!

As the title says, I have never had a bird and just adopted a a 20 year old blue crowned conure. I've been reading all kinds of forums, but I have lots of questions and concerns. I would appreciate your help so much! Here it goes.

About a week ago my fiancee and I adopted and old conure from the humane society. We paid the humane society to do some blood tests and they said the bird was healthy, although we still don't know the sex. We call him Captain Cracker, since the humane society did not ask the owners who surrendered him the bird's name. We pretend Captain Cracker is a boy, but we have no idea.

Captain Cracker is very pretty and he has all of his feathers, and eats a lot. We are feeding him Kaytee parrot mix, which has seeds and some pellets in it. Captain Cracker loves the seeds, especially the sunflower seeds, and picks those out. He also loves the peanuts that are in the mix. Since we live in Hawaii, we have access to lots of fresh papaya and he seems to love that too. I have read that pellets are best, but the local pet store recommended the Kaytee mix to us so we went with their advice. We actually went with all of their advice and bought our cage and toy based off off their recommendations. Should we stay with this diet or switch it to something else. For treats, we bought some Lafeber's Nutri-Berries popcorn treats. How is the stuff I'm listing off? We give him fresh reverse osmosis water everyday to drink.

What I'm most concerned about it how to gain this guy's trust. I've read all kinds of different things on forums and youtube videos, and I'm confused. Many say stick your hands in the cage and get bit, some say don't do that. I have done both and he bites hard and draws blood. But, if I stick my hand in the cage with some kind of food he likes he will very gently take the food from between my fingers. I think the bird likes me better than my fiancee. When I am in the room he is very calm, but as soon as I step out he starts squaking and it goes on for awhile. When I go to work in the morning, I am told he freaks out. I have read to ignore him when he does this, because I don't want to reward that kind of behavior.

Captain Cracker does not want to come out of his cage if the world depended on it. He just stays on his perch. I have tried saying different things to him to see if I can sway him, but nothing works. The only time he has perched on someone was when we first took him to the petstore and the guy there took him out of his pet carrier and just stuck him on his finger and walked around the pet store like that, Captain Crakcers wings are clipped BTW. When the guy at the pet store took him out of his pet carrier box, he just reached in and grabbed him. When it was time to go back in the box, Captain Cracker was not happy. But now he's in his cage all of the time. I leave the door open, but he seems set staying inside.

In his cage we bought him rope toy that has the rope on it, a bell, some wood dowels, a rawhide bone, and some other stuff. It was the fanciest toy the pet store had and I've never seen him play with it. He just chews on the wood dowels. We also put a cuttlebone in his cage which he also doesn't seem too interested in.

Now that I have given some background, what do you folks recommend as a regiment to get this guy to be a happy birdy and come out and play, or just even so I can clean his cage? If there's any other pieces of info that would be helpful, please let me know and I will gladly supply them.

Thank you so much!

Hi there. Welcome to the forum. My cherry-head conure, Pritti, is 30 years old, so I'm familiar with living with a mature birdy, but I know for sure he is male per DNA.

So, I believe that Blue-browns have similar behavior traits to Cherry-heads. I don't know this from personal experience, just from what I've read.

What, if anything, do you know about his background, including how long he was at the rescue, how he did there, socialization there, etc?

Do you have a playstand or playgym or perch for outside the cage? In other words, where would Capt. Cracker be going when he comes out? A place for him to feel steady on his feet would be good, like a perch that can stand on a table at the minimum, but a playgym would be great (homemade or bought).

He's not coming out of his cage because he is still not comfortable and has some fear being out of his security zone. It could take one birds days and another bird weeks to get comfie.

So, if he will accept the food gently from your hand, then you can build on that easily. Please refrain from letting anyone, incl. you, stick their hand in the cage and "challenge" him. It's too confusing for the bird and will not make for a nice relationship or trust. Try to lure him with the treat. Set up a perch that goes perpendicular to the perch he sits on most of the time, to that it forms like and L. Have it end as close to a cage door/exit as possible - then you can perhaps lure him at his own pace to the doorway and feed him there, and talk to him and reward him with 'good bird' or whatever you phrase you will want to use consistently to praise him with. you can reward him obviously with that treat too that you lured him with. Your boyfriend can do these same things with him. If not, maybe your boyfriend can take care of the food and water dishes and get the to form a trust that way. He should be calm and gentle with the bird.

Think about the guy at pet store and how the bird just jumped on finger and they walked around together. This was a stranger to Capt. C. So what happened? Why did Capt. C. seem okay with him. Most likely it is his approach and body language and tone of his voice used with the birdy. I can do that often with stranger birds too. It's important for you to make eye contact with your bird when you are talking to him, playing with him, handling him. You will learn alot and help move the relationship and trust along if you spend time just hanging out -- pull up a chair and chat with the birdy - watch his body language, sit with him when he gets his fresh food. Bring something over and eat it too.

You should be giving him fresh foods like broccoli, kale, a little sweet potatoe or carrots, little bits of peeled apple, some green peas, celery, etc. All in small portions. Fresh food should be an everyday thing. I highly recommend switching him away from a seed mixture of any kind and using pellets in it's place. If you want an organic pellet, Harrison's seems to be highly regarded and often used by forum members. I am soon going to try converting Pritti from Zupreem Natural med/large conure size pellets to Harrison's organic. He's taking medication now for a while and I don't want to switch him too much, as I've already screwed up his diet too much by offering him Lafeber's various "berries" and then he got subborn and wouldn't eat his pellets at all. Grrrr. I'm working on that and have had two days of it working well so far. So start him out on a nice balanced healthy regimen and you won't have to switch it out later when you learn more about conures and would most likely want to switch to a pellet anyway. I have been very happy and so has Pritti with Zupreem Natural (same size pellet for Capt. C would be medium/large for conure). It's just that I want him on organic since I've been slowly converting myself to organic - and he's an older bird so the fewer toxins the better, especially now. I also feed him salt free one percent fat cottage cheese from time to time and does fine with it. Same goes for occasional cooked proteins like fish, chicken. Whole grains cooked are great as well as part of the fresh food - quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat groats, etc.

Fool around trying to figure out what makes your bird tick. Singing to him, humming? Kissy noises, foot toys, bood chewy toys, shreddable toys, rolling things, etc. Toys are very important, all kinds and you can put 3 to 5 in there at once if there is enough space, including a foraging toy, a bell, rope. Also, natural wood perches from petshop to replace dowels or some of them anyway.

If you want, post a photo of the Captain and some photos of his cage and what's in it, and a playstand/gym if you have one. I'm sure we can give you some more directed tips if something might be better than the arrangement he has in there now.

You sound very excited to have a bird and that makes me feel very happy for Captain Cracker.