tips on bonding with baby sun conure

[samanthabe1]

Yep I got my first sun conure from them. Unfortunatly I did not go and meet the breeder. My mom and dad did because the sun was a christmas present from last year. I also wasn't well educated on training and bonding with him so I had followed the advice he gave my parents for about a week. This was a few weeks after I got him.

Then I added a green cheek that he soon bonded with and he became almost unhand-able. About a month ago I traded them for a younge male sun conure. I was really sad at first but this breeder was nice and knew what he was doing. I'm suppose to go visit them sometime soon which makes me happy. So know I'm well educated and have two lovely sun conures. (One I traded for and another that I had got at when I had the other 2)

Oh and did yours come banded? I know it's not necesary though.

 

[jonsbabykake]

the ones out in the open were but mine did not come banded. and on the paperwork it says the parents are "unknown" but after he wrote that he was like "oh the parents are on site but i have so many babies im not sure whos this one was" lol and its like oh great dude.

i have my sun conure and also 2 bonded male and female budgies. she luvs them to death. theyre cages are against opposite walls in the same room but shes very sad that the budgies can fly and she cant fly with them. i plan on letting her be flighted when they finally grow back after that botched job...but maybe with a slight trim.

how old was the one u purchased from the tucson dealer? and if they told u he was a couple months, did urs have the green body feathers? my sun looks exactly as yours does in that picture right now, color wise. and another funny tidbit is that wood star toy u have pictured next to urs is my suns favorite toy lol. shes chewed off all the stars some time ago but she luvs to munch on the leather.

 

[samanthabe1]

My parents were told he was about 3 or 4 months old. He loved the star toy and at our walmart there's those wood toy bears and ducks that he loved. But the star toy is 8 or 9 bucks and that was the small one.

 

[birdiemomma]

My bird was already extremely friendly & tame when I bought her from Omar's Exotic Birds but a game I often play with her is the towel game. I cover her head with a towel and then we play peek-a-boo. She now loves her towel and has no problem being groomed with it, drying off after a bath with it, going to the vet, etc. We still play towel games every few days just to keep the towel love going! In all honesty, it makes her sooo much easier to handle (especially in case of emergency) because she loves her towel.

 

[jonsbabykake]

that would be great if i could do that with my sun but right now i cant even get her to stay by me when i come up to hger cage lol she scrambles to the back all the time but shes getting a lil better. i try to get her to step up when shes out of the cage but no luck yet.

if shes not tramatized from the toweling the breeder did im definately gonna try that when shes much more tame.

 

[birdiemomma]

Another good way to bond is just to sit outside of his/her cage and talk to them and be near them. That way they know that you are trustworthy.

 

[jonsbabykake]

thats what ive been doing with her. ive been trying to get her to come to me for treats too so she gets off her perch and has to get near my hand herself for her treat, its slowly working but shes just not as trusting as everyone elses suns lol. i can tell she luvs me and she wants to be with me but shes just too scared to step up and come with me. if she only knew how fun it was..

 

[samanthabe1]

The way the breeder suggested was no towel game :/ I've tried playing that with my reasent sun conures and they're not big fans of it unfortanly.

 

[Parrotlover11]

Hello, Congrats on the new baby!
I recently also have gotten two baby sun conure's, the way I bonded with them was basically by talking to them on a daily basis and as often as I could through out the day. Also I keep the cage open almost all day allowing them to roam around the cage and fly around the house. Make sure to give them a lot of attention, play with them, they love to learn new tricks. Get them to trust you by stepping up and stepping down. What I have found to work was a training clicker that you can purchase from several pet stores for $2.00 or less. Just keep talking and playing with them. Soon your sun conure will fly to you on command and will come to you without biting you. If your conure bites a lot, I would recommend the stick and clicker method.
Good luck!
Have Fun!

 

[Cozmo]

i got mine in tucson from a homebased business called arizona parrots. i got to meet the breeder directly, and his wife was also there. she is ukrainian. she was very nice, but i am not fond of him as he doesnt seem to really know his stuff. his method is more of breaking the birds like u would a dog, and none of his birds were hand tame, despite all being hand fed. the only reason i didnt just walk out on the guy was because how poorly he was treating the bird i was going to get and even my husband felt bad for her. there were 3 suns out in the open infront of the house that were in a tiny dirty cage, but the birds themselves looked ok, but 2 of them pulled out their tail feathers. in his exact words he told me "oh dont worry bout their tails, if u want them to grow back in u just pluck their wing feathers" i was like mmm i dont think so lol. but anyway, he didnt want me to have one of those birds cuz they were older and he wanted to get me a baby to make it easier to tame. he went into the house and didnt come back out for about 20 mins. he went and got a "younger" bird from out back where i couldnt observe the living conditions..and the first thing he does is "give me a lesson in wing clipping" and cuts off her flight feathers veryyyy short, even the secondaries. it wasnt even nicely done too, pretty uneven and careless. then he proceeded to "teach me" how to towel the bird. if she bites put the towel over her head for 2 minutes..or if she jumped down to throw the towel ontop of her for 2 minutes for "punishment"...anyway, ill prob never go to this breeder ever again. sure the website looks nice but its really not when u get there. a mother and her daughter were there also getting a cockatiel, and he did the same thing with me which was go off and pick a random bird, come back and cut off all the feathers, but the mother was like um excuse me but wut if i wanted to pick out my own bird? and that made him a bit ticked off. he even told me that my sun would fit well in a cage that was for a cockatiel but i made sure i got her a nice big cage and he said it was going to be the taj majal for her. they also told me my sun was 4 months old, but she lacked ANY green body feathers u associate with baby suns. she has the coloration more of a 1 yr old sun. so unless hes bred out that gene successfully, they lied to me about her age. my sun has some people issues, and im sure its because of the way she was treated by this guy, but im hoping in a few more months we will be ok

Wow I can't believe it I just got a Sun Conure (Cozmo) from the same breeder on Saturday and absolutely everything you said is the same thing that happened to me. We weren't even sure we wanted a Sun Conure but he brought one out (we never got to pick the one we wanted), clipped his wings (paid for the DNA test to get a male but now sure it's true now), showed us the towel work (which I thought was mean), showed us how to hold the poor guy by the head with 3 fingers while pulling his leg and tail and then brought us a bag of food and receipt without us even saying we wanted him. Of course we bought him and brought him home and I did the towel thing all day Sunday, thinking this guys a breeder and must know what he's talking about, but after 1 day Cozmo was so angry with the towel that I stopped and turned to the internet. That's when I found this parrot forum and your thread and since it was so meaningful to me I have now joined hoping for help in the future since I'm a newbie to the Sun Conure world but had a Cockatiel for 24 years.