BridgetsFlame
New member
- Nov 24, 2015
- 29
- Media
- 4
- 0
- Parrots
- 2 Sun Conures: Atticus (Hatched 7/11/10) and Rea (Hatched 27/10/15)
Hi All, I'm after some advice, and figured here might be the best way to get it.
I currently have a sun conure (Atti), I bought him five years ago, as a little 12 week old baby. Since I've had him we've been living with my mother and her tiel. Atti has adored torturing the tiel from the first day they met. Never actively hurting him, but dive bombing him the few times they've been out together, and obsessively calling to the tiel until Echo is just sitting screaming at the top of his lungs. At which point Atti goes and does something else. We would also go ob road trips and Atti loved visiting friend's birds, he didn't seem to mind what species but he was always very social and playful with them.
We moved out a while back and life has been incredibly calm since. Atti's always been a quiet bird, but without Echo to annoy he's stopped with all loud screeching. We had a sun conure visit recently and Atti was flat out delighted. He pulled out all his favourite songs and dancing.
Anyway I work 9-5 now (the perils of buying a pet when you are a teenager) and Atti has his own room and his cage is positioned for the best view. He looks out onto a tree with a bird feeder in it and the wild lorikeets, grass parrots and cockatoos 'visit' him all day long. I've been promising him a companion for a while, and decided to bite the bullet. I had been going to purchase a budgie or a lovebird or similar, to have in a separate cage in the same room that he could talk to. Then while searching for the right bird I came across an ad for hand reared conures... And fell in love. So I've put my name down for a female sun conure (still waiting on DNA back), but if there are no females in the clutch will take a male instead.
These bubs won't be weaned until Christmas, so it will be an almost exact five year age gap between the new bird and Atti. I would ultimately 'like' the two to share a cage, and have vague notions of maybe one day providing a nest box and breeding them, but these are very vague at the moment.
I am perfectly willing to lose my bond with Atti, I love him dearly, but the longer I am around wild parrots compared to him the more I feel that I am doing him a disservice having him bonded to me and not another sun conure. Even if I get ignored and screamed at for the next 30 years, I would still have two gorgeous birds to admire, and a myriad of antics to watch.
At the other end of the spectrum if they need separate caging I can live with that as well, I'm working the assumption they will need separate cages and purchasing a second full size cage. Though if they needed separate flight times that would make things much more difficult. As I have a greyhound as well, we already work on strict schedules of who is out at any given time.
As to the breeding thing, I like the idea of breeding him, but am currently not set up for it, and even if I wanted to, the girl would need a good three years to mature first. So it's just an idea nothing more, and I have no issue with addling any eggs laid and taking measures to prevent them in the first place if I decide not to breed.
So after this very long post, my actual query was about how the age difference would impact any attempts at bonding? I'll keep the new girl in quarantine for three months, which will give her a chance to bond with me and get used to me. Then I'll move her cage to Atti's room. As far as I can tell from what I have read I just keep moving the cages closer to each other and give the birds turns out of their cage, and eventually start trying flight time with both together. Then, one day there will be a point where they are ready to share a cage?
I currently have a sun conure (Atti), I bought him five years ago, as a little 12 week old baby. Since I've had him we've been living with my mother and her tiel. Atti has adored torturing the tiel from the first day they met. Never actively hurting him, but dive bombing him the few times they've been out together, and obsessively calling to the tiel until Echo is just sitting screaming at the top of his lungs. At which point Atti goes and does something else. We would also go ob road trips and Atti loved visiting friend's birds, he didn't seem to mind what species but he was always very social and playful with them.
We moved out a while back and life has been incredibly calm since. Atti's always been a quiet bird, but without Echo to annoy he's stopped with all loud screeching. We had a sun conure visit recently and Atti was flat out delighted. He pulled out all his favourite songs and dancing.
Anyway I work 9-5 now (the perils of buying a pet when you are a teenager) and Atti has his own room and his cage is positioned for the best view. He looks out onto a tree with a bird feeder in it and the wild lorikeets, grass parrots and cockatoos 'visit' him all day long. I've been promising him a companion for a while, and decided to bite the bullet. I had been going to purchase a budgie or a lovebird or similar, to have in a separate cage in the same room that he could talk to. Then while searching for the right bird I came across an ad for hand reared conures... And fell in love. So I've put my name down for a female sun conure (still waiting on DNA back), but if there are no females in the clutch will take a male instead.
These bubs won't be weaned until Christmas, so it will be an almost exact five year age gap between the new bird and Atti. I would ultimately 'like' the two to share a cage, and have vague notions of maybe one day providing a nest box and breeding them, but these are very vague at the moment.
I am perfectly willing to lose my bond with Atti, I love him dearly, but the longer I am around wild parrots compared to him the more I feel that I am doing him a disservice having him bonded to me and not another sun conure. Even if I get ignored and screamed at for the next 30 years, I would still have two gorgeous birds to admire, and a myriad of antics to watch.
At the other end of the spectrum if they need separate caging I can live with that as well, I'm working the assumption they will need separate cages and purchasing a second full size cage. Though if they needed separate flight times that would make things much more difficult. As I have a greyhound as well, we already work on strict schedules of who is out at any given time.
As to the breeding thing, I like the idea of breeding him, but am currently not set up for it, and even if I wanted to, the girl would need a good three years to mature first. So it's just an idea nothing more, and I have no issue with addling any eggs laid and taking measures to prevent them in the first place if I decide not to breed.
So after this very long post, my actual query was about how the age difference would impact any attempts at bonding? I'll keep the new girl in quarantine for three months, which will give her a chance to bond with me and get used to me. Then I'll move her cage to Atti's room. As far as I can tell from what I have read I just keep moving the cages closer to each other and give the birds turns out of their cage, and eventually start trying flight time with both together. Then, one day there will be a point where they are ready to share a cage?