Did I ruin my son's Conure?

My son is 6 years old and a friend of mine bought him a conure in May as she has a Hyacinth Macaw and a Scarlet Macaw who he has been obsessed with for years so this was his "starter parrot."

He has pretty much been the centre of our lives and either out of his cage and on us or in the greenhouse with three feral budgies all summer.

Now it's getting cold in the greenhouse and my son has to go to school (only 2.5 hours a day as we partially home school) but he has to go in his cage at 12:30. He thinks this is cruel and evil and I had to chase him down to put him in his cage to be on time for school.

Now he doesn't trust me, runs away and I can't get him in his cage without chasing him down, then he doesn't trust me even more. It's really terrible. We have been so close and he's totally trusted me up until now.

We have 4 cats so I HAVE to be able to grab him when I need to.

Help!

The other thing that happened is we bought my daughter a hand fed baby budgie and they bicker and he gets jealous of her when she's on my shoulder.

Oh and also just before all this I put him on his flight harness against his will and I think that was the beginning of the end of him trusting me.

Any advice as to how I can win him back? I need to be able to keep him safe and get him in his cage when we need to leave.

I'm heartbroken.

Thanks,
Sara & Aerial-the-Yellow-Sided-Red-Factor-Green-Cheek-Conure

In my experience, conures can be pretty forgiving. Give him time. Of course he doesn't want to go in his cage, so try giving him his favorite treat every time you put him in there. Also, try putting him in there and leaving the door open (just for practice) and sometimes try putting him in and a few minutes later getting him out again, so he learns it's not always a prison.

Back off on the harness for a while, harness training needs to be a very slow, gradual process. If you rush it, fids can hold quite a grudge for being 'tied up' like that.

Good luck! Don't lose hope.

100% agree with Squeekmouse.
Always start from positive reinforcement.

Forcing a harness is terrified to most birds. Some birds take a few days to learn to love the harness; others take months. It's slow and patient training - extreme baby steps, like "one treat for looking at the harness in a non-aggressive way". If you don't have the time to train him (we did 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening every day), hold off on the harness.

As for the cage situation, I would recommend recall training him. Then progress from there. Whenever our little guy needs to go in his cage, I either recall him to me or I tell him to fly to his cage. We did train this - positive reinforcement. Then again, this isn't the most common of ways to handle this. Most people just leave it at what Squeekmouse described, which is quite good already.

I would totally back off on the harness for now. Get a little bowl with "Favorite Snacks" and start some serious spoiling. Tell him you are going to give him a treat and then follow through (he'll start to think perhaps your not so bad). And the more reliable you can be the faster he will start to trust again. This is where routines can work magic. We do bath time at a certain time of the morning. Then after bath there are ALWAYS snacks. Then after lunch we fit in some fun clicker training. Routines make you more predictable and birds seem to thrive on routines.

All three of my birds were MONSTERS about going back into their cage. In fact one night it took me 2 HOURS to get the GCCs back in, and that was the night I resolved to fix this little issue. Here is what I did with my little people:

When your bird is out practice getting him "in and out" his cage frequently and always make his cage the BEST place in town to go back to because he ALWAYS gets his favorite very special treats when he gets put back in. I hold sunflower seeds (or other types of Bird Crack) in my hand in their cage. They fly in, take a seed out of my hand. Then I throw a couple into their cage treat bowl so that it encourages them to be in their cage with the door open. Sometimes I leave it at that and let them come out when they want. Sometimes I'll shut the door for 10 seconds, sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for the night. This is the one area where being unpredictable with birds can work miracles. I even vary "how" I give the treats. Sometimes it's just one sunflower seed, sometimes its a jack pot. Regardless, I ALWAYS make returning to their cage super special with a few top notch treats thrown in.

Target training could also be really helpful here...if the target starts off as something completely fun associated with a treat that moves around, eventually if the target moves into the cage (and then out of the cage, and then into the cage, I’m sure you get the picture) your son’s little GCC will probably be much happier about going into his cage. My GCC only took about 60 seconds to figure out the whole touch the target = get a treat thing and now it’s one of her favorite activities. Good luck!

As said, cage equals treats and is a great place! When JoJo first came to me, he hated his cage! I started putting him in his cage many times a day, just for a minute or two! Giving a treat every time! This way, the cage was disassociated with ‘end of play’!

I wanted to add this, as I was typing this, JoJo, being tired, just flew over to his sleep cage! He pulled the door open and is in there, waiting for me to tuck him in!

All of the above members have given you excellent advice!!
Hand feed treats like crazy! Put him in and out of the cage all day long, so it no big deal. I had to do this with a rescue.
Maybe don't let him out till after the 12 deadline for awhile. So there is no chasing.
You definitely want him to learn eventually that the magic 123o is when he gets the yummies, new forage stuff toys and praise.
You can overcome this! It might take way longer than how quick the chasing caused it. But you will succeed! Keep us posted! What's working for you and what's not.

All good advice above.

I'm going to say something that a lotoffolksdont agree with, but here it s.
Chasing your parrot for any reason is a huge trust breaker. Think about it from tha parrots view point!
So here is the advice. Have his wings clipped. He will need you or another person to move him from here to there. Training him then will be easier. Establish a separate perch away from his cage, for step up and step down training, and other essential commands. You are right, you need to be able to pick him up if conditions warrant it. And WOW 3 cats! Usually that is not s good recipe for aharmonious house, so be extra careful when ever he is out of his cage.

Read the stickie at the top of the Amazon sb forum,titled "I love Amazons". There is wealth of essential info about all parrots,not just Amazons. Really, your going from zero to 100 miles an hour in a very short time, so thelearning curve is steep, but that stickiewill help a lot. And the huge group of conure owners here have good advice to give you too,

Yoour son will have a friend well into his 20's or more, if you and he become parronts instead of owners.

Good Luck!!!

Thank you all for the amazing advice. I'm very humbled. We are going to read this all again tomorrow as a family and hatch a plan to win him back!

I will update when we have progress. He does forgive me at bedtime so he can snuggle until my son goes to sleep and then I put him in his cage so he still trusts me when he's sleepy. Whew! At least we have that!

Thanks again.

Oh and I used to be able to win him over with tiny bits of papaya but he doesn't fall for that anymore. He's still a sucker for safflower seeds most of the time but he doesn't seem particularly food motivated - what are your conures MOST favourite treats that we could save only for winning his heart back training?

Yoda's favorite things:

Almond slivers
Papaya bits
Sunflower seeds
Safflower seeds
Peanuts
Cuddles
Foot toys (anything with a bell)
Fresh banana
Fresh apple
Corn (in any form)