Baby conure out of cage time

My cinnamon/pineapple green cheek Echo is almost 3 months old. I have him for almost a week. I am wondering how often and how long I should have him out of his cage. As of now he out of his cage 3 or 4 times a day, and each time in between 30 and 60 minutes. I do understand that quality is better than quantity. When he's out of his cage I introduce toys to him, and also teach him the colours of the pieces of wood etc. He also do some training with him, like stepping up and down, which he does awesome. He also flies around a bit and then I call him and he comes back to me. I let him bath and afterwards he always wants to snuggle in my neck against my face which we do for quite a while every day. And I also introduce him slowly to his play stand, which he likes more and more. And I also introduce him to his flight harness, which he's very interested in.
I hope that I'm doing it okay like this. When he's out of his cage I don't really do anything else at the same time, because he's still so young and I want to keep my attention on him.

What do you think? is this enough? Or do you think he needs more? I of course want to give him everything he needs
When he's in his cage I also every now and then talk to him or give him a snack through the bars etc.

Sounds great to me!

Just don't worry about it, it sounds great. I clip my bird wings but I don't even have to call him, he calls me. I don't know if there is so much thing as to much time unless you see your schedule changing around a lot.

When I get home I call out "wheres my brid" "where's clark" as I go to his cage and I just have him get on and we go. He has his cage food and water and the "man cave" food and water. The man cave is where we "netflix and chill" just without the connotation. Then we play some "conure-running-man" like I talked about in the "birds inventing sports" post. Then we put out some wild seed for the bunnies and chipmunks and wrens and robins and cardinals and squirrels so he can call to them... or maybe he's threatening them i dunno, but he enjoys it.

sounds great!

Just make sure you can keep this up throughout his life, they can get upset and think they're being abandoned if interaction with them drops suddenly

Thank you all very much. I don't do it exactly the same every day. Some days more, some days less. So that he doesn't really get used to anything, and won't feel abandoned when there's a day that I have less time to spend with him.

All I can echo is that consistency is of vital importance.

Try to keep the same schedule (in terms of time out of the cage and when and for how long).

My Skittles is free flighted, so he isn't used to being caged for any pro-longed period of time. He spends most of his days on his various play stands and perches. Sometimes he climbs in my shirt and hangs out or naps while other times he sits on my shoulder and presses himself against my neck. I just try to integrate him into whatever I am doing at the moment. He likes to be included.

I noticed that if I have him out of his cage when I'm not focussing on him, that he starts to get cranky and biting. Maybe he's too young for that. Or he just wants to be the centre of attention. But if I watch a movie for example while he's out, it won't go very well. I notice that I actively have to do something with him, like playing with toys or step-up step-down or other kind of training.

Pilaf said:

he just wants to be the centre of attention

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welcome to parrot ownership!

Part of that is he is used to being the center of attenion already and is grumpy you're not paying attention.

if you can teach him to play on his own then movies become easier. I only watched one movie in the month I had Rio and he ended up wanting to watch too so was perched happily on my leg getting scritches while we watched

They do have to have a large amount of attention of course but they need to learn it's not constantly all about them. Naturally you need to time to yourself

Today when I had Echo out of his cage, he played a lot by himself on his play stand. He's getting more and more used to his play stand. And even now and then he flies to me for a bit of playtime with toys. He does get nippy though when he really wants something to go his way. Like he was sitting on my friends neck, licking his neck, and then being also a bit too rough. but my friend couldn't get him off or to step on his hand. So he asked my help. I tried to distract Echo with a toy and let him step on my hand. The first few times he nipped me and kept licking and biting my friend's neck, but then he stepped on my hand while beaking my hand a bit rough. I wasn't sure what to do, whether to praise him or not. Because he did step up like I wanted, but he also bit me at the same time. I decided to ignore it and let him step up on my other hand, and when he did that, I rewarded him by giving a treat. I hope that was the right thing to do.

You'll find with conures, they are notorious attention seekers. It's actually not that difficult to manage though, at least for me. I just integrate Skitty into whatever I'm doing. Simply talking to him and petting him on occasion while I'm busy doing things seems to work.

For example, when I'm doing dishes, I let him sit on the faucet or the dish rack and watch me, sometimes he even 'helps' dry the dishes.

I have a play perch attached to my desk so he can be near me when I am on the PC though he will often prefer instead to sit on my shoulder or cuddle inside my shirt.

I used to do that with my lovebird Pilaf as well. He went everywhere with me, and I made him part of everything. Also when I was working on my pencil drawings, Pilaf was always sitting/sleeping in my hand. I would love for Echo to be like that as well when he's older.

what you keep describing of him honestly doesn't sound like biting to me.

It sounds like a baby trying to figure out the world.

If your friend wants bird on them but not to be licked or nibbled then they don't want a bird on them. Also the shoulder privileges need to be removed until he is behaving. Not for a day and not as a punishment. Only when he is behaving consistently should he be on a shoulder. If you're nervous about him then you shouldn't have him step on to someone else.

Any "nipping" behavior if anything is going to be caused by you being nervous, you're tensing up and he can feel your tension making him tense and up-tight. Ultimately he isn't going to do any permanent damage to you. Less than your lovebird would ever do unless you train him to bite.

Read Birdman666's post on big beaks in the macaw forum, it applies here and may help you. Just remember it's more his third hand than a biting implement