My conure is scared of me

Hi Everyone,
My name is Alex,
I live on the central coast
I purchased a Green Cheek Conure from a pet store about 2.5 months ago and have named him James.
He is very scared of my hands and me when i walk over to his cage and he goes and hides out of sight so i cant get to him. I have tried cutting up apple and even tried putting sunflower seeds on my hand and when i do have him on my hand all he wants to do it get away from me and the only way to get him is if i corner him. I am very new to this and not sure what to do. I get upset with this as i dont know what i am doing wrong.
Any help would be great
Thanks
Alex

I'm still new myself but have you tried just leaving the cage open and talking while watching TV or surfing the web nearby. Not sure where the cage is, if it's in a busy room or not. Do you spend a lot of time within sight during the day with it. It may be more receptive to coming out for a visit on its own terms when ready.
Perhaps a little more information on the big picture would be helpful the the more experienced and knowledgeable members. I'm just spitballing here from my little experience. Sorry you are having trouble with the little fella.

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Hi,
I live on my own and i do leave the cage door open when i am at home so James can get out and he does move get out of the cage and yes i have been watching tv and trying to talk to him but it may just be a long wait for him and i to bond. The pet shop wasnt helpful on how long they had him and about the breeder so i dont really know his past so that could be the case but i will keep going but i appreciate your feedback no matter how new you are with parrots. Thanks

Welcome to the forum too. There are some very helpful people here and should be able to get you heading the right direction. It sounds to me like little James is just having a hard time adjusting sadly. I may be very wrong and am just trying to help. Good luck and help will be here shortly. They have helped me a ton.

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Welcome, Alex & James! Patience is the big thing. Does James have a leg band? I'm thinking maybe you could find out more about him using that. What kind of pet store was it? You weren't told age or anything?
Don't get upset, give it time. Depending on what he's been thru, it could be a good while before he trusts you. I rescued a sun over a year ago & he still doesn't particularly like my hands but he does come to me. He went thrust hard times. I rescued two quakers who've been thru worse things. I find myself wanting to cuddle them to let them know how much I love them & that they're safe but they don't understand. As eager as we are to interact, we need to let them go at their pace.

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Thankyou for that. I appreciate it. I got him from a local store here on the coast. They told me they didnt know the age but he wasnt that old. Also his beak looks to be cracked a bit at the top of the beak. i will try to get some pics up here

Beaks are like fingernails, they peel, chip, etc. It's normal. You'll see them rubbing the beak on perches and/or other things. It's their way of "filing" it, for lack of a better word.

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You are going to fast with him. Think like they do, everything will potentially eat/hurt me. My only method of protecting myself is hiding. It makes sense that he's trying to hide. Your first goal should be to just try to approach the cage without him feeling the need to hide. How? Start to approach his cage until you see him get "nervous" then stop and step back. Talk to him from "that far away" until he gets comfortable. Do this many times. You'll start to notice that the distance the he feels nervous will get shorter and shorter. Once you're able to approach his cage without him hiding, then you begin to work on opening the cage without him hiding, then work on putting your hand inside the cage without him hiding, then work on getting him to step up. It's a process which can be very long or go quick. But it will be James' process. Once you win the trust of him, it's great. My Tillie is such a love bug now but we had to work at it.

trimblegirls said:

You are going to fast with him. Think like they do, everything will potentially eat/hurt me. My only method of protecting myself is hiding. It makes sense that he's trying to hide. Your first goal should be to just try to approach the cage without him feeling the need to hide. How? Start to approach his cage until you see him get "nervous" then stop and step back. Talk to him from "that far away" until he gets comfortable. Do this many times. You'll start to notice that the distance the he feels nervous will get shorter and shorter. Once you're able to approach his cage without him hiding, then you begin to work on opening the cage without him hiding, then work on putting your hand inside the cage without him hiding, then work on getting him to step up. It's a process which can be very long or go quick. But it will be James' process. Once you win the trust of him, it's great. My Tillie is such a love bug now but we had to work at it.

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This is so absolutely right on! I had wanted to say something like this but I could not find any of the words! Remember in your own sentence you said that you have to corner him, remember for him that is terrifying!

Thankyou for that. I will try it and hope he does gain my trust soon.

Perhaps he has had a bad experience and so your hands are dangerous to him. I would keep my distance and use a spare perch rather than your hand, and never corner him, that just compounds the fear. Is it possible that he isn't hand reared so is therefore wild, if so you will have to go so slowly it will feel like stop.

With any creature time is the one thing that is invaluable. Don't have any expectations other than good husbandry so he learns to trust. He will tell you when he's ready for more be patient like never before.

I'm pretty sure that James was not hand-raised by a breeder but rather parent-raised, the pet shop most likely got him from a mass vendor that breeds birds in a large room or warehouse, and they have little to do with the babies. So this is why James is scared of you, he was not abused and did not have a traumatic thing happen to him, he's just a normal, parent-raised baby bird that still has to be hand-tamed before he will like people! So that's the way you need to approach this, it's not a matter of giving him time to adjust to you, it's a matter of him not being a hand-raised bird and not being exposed to people much at all. In fact, most of the baby birds that come from vendors that mass breed and parent-raise the babies that they sell don't even see people on a regular basis until they get to the pet store. The "breeders" in these bird mills only have contact with their birds when they put food and water in their cages or aviaries. You have to realize that baby birds are typically inside their nest boxes and fed by their parents until they are 6+ weeks old, so James probably never even saw a human being until he was fully weaned and came out of his nest box to eat. Then he and his siblings were gathered up and shipped to the pet shops. So you have to start working with him every day, multiple training sessions a day to start to hand tame him. There are a lot of different methods to doing this, but start off by making sure that his cage is located in the room of your home that you're in the most and that has the most traffic. This is usually the living room. Every time you or a visitor even walks past his cage this will help to get him used to people. Talk to him every time you walk past his cage. He needs to be exposed to as many people as possible.

The method of hand-taming that works the best in my experience is very boring, but very effective. It involves putting a chair next to his cage and just sitting there reading to him (a book, magazine, etc.) or continually talking to him while resting your hand just inside his cage door. You need to do this for 20-30 minutes at a time, a few times a day. Each week you should be able to move your hand a little bit closer to him. Only move your hand towards him to the point where he just sits there and stops backing away from it. Then start reading or talking to him for 20-30 minutes. After each training session place his favorite treat either in his cage or if he'll take it from your hand or through his cage bars, however. Then a bit later do another session. The point is to be able to rest your hand a little bit closer each week or so. You do it at his pace, he dictates how fast it goes, not you. If you try to move your hand closer and he backs away or freaks out then pull it back again. Some people actually have to start by putting just the chair as close to their bird's cage as they can without their bird freaking out, and then every week or so they move the chair a little bit closer to the cage, until they get the chair right next to the cage, then they don't sit and read or talk with just the door open for a week. Then they test their hand on the outside of the open door. It's wherever he's comfortable that dictates it. When your hand finally gets close enough to him inside his cage that he could reach it on his own, then you need to put his favorite treat in your hand at that distance. Miller sprays are actually really good for this because they can stick out of your hand towards him at a distance. Once he's comfortable eating from the millet spray in your hand, then put the millet spray in the middle of your hand while extending your index finger out towards him, and freeze. You do this until he steps-up onto your finger and eats the millet spray. Once he's VERY comfortable doing this, the next step is moving him on your finger as close to the cage door as you can, little by little, until one day you can move him on your finger outside of the cage.

This process can takes weeks to months to many months to years. It's at the bird's pace. But it works very well. Just letting the bird outside of his cage and trying to get him to step-up isn't going to do it. He's the safest inside his cage, that's his space. They are very territorial of their space. So the idea is that if you can get him to trust you enough so that he'll step-up onto your hand inside his space, eat from your hand inside his space, and allow you to move him outside of his space, he'll then trust you anywhere and all the time.

"Dance like nobody's watching..."