Chocolach
New member
- Mar 5, 2024
- 2
- 0
- Parrots
- Pebble and Marble
Hello!
I come to your humble abode of experienced bird owner because i've found myself in a bit of a pickle here.
So, for context;
In last december, my family gifted me a one year old green cheeked conure, as i had been talking about wanting to adopt one for the last two years. At the time, I had a job that only made me work in the morning, leaving me enough time to spend with my new bird.
I named that bird Pebble, and she took to her new life crazy fast. Not afraid of my hand at all, if anything, she was a bit aggressive, but easy to work with when food was involved. I was able to let her fly around after 3 day, and while she was quite the nasty biter at the beginning, nowaday she barely ever leave bruises. She scream as soon as we are out of her sight, always end up horny-cuddling instead of just cuddling (still working on that) and love to play on her back.
Unfortunately, I had to quit my job right at the beginning of january and search for something else. One month later, I did find something! But it's a 9am to 7pm job, with sometimes no dinner break, making it quite a long day for a lone conure.
Right now, my mother live with me, so i'm not worried about Pebble social need, but once she move out, the days would be long for my bird.
With that in mind, I decided to adopt a second conure almost 3 weeks ago.
I named her marble annnd... She is the total opposite of Pebble. Extremely hand shy, so much so that i wonder if she was truly raised near humans, or if she had some bad memories of hands from her breeder. After 2 weeks of hand feeding, the most i can get her to do is lightly nibble on one of my finger. Otherwise, hands are just a no go. She is younger than Pebble, still making what i believe are baby noises. Despite her not being able to go on the hand, we still let her out of her cage during our one-on-one time.
After a while, we started to slowly introduce the two conure. Making them see each other from afar, then a bit closer, adding the new one cage to the living room far enough, then putting the two cage next to each other. They don't seem to be aggressive towards each other... Until Pebble get out. As soon as we turn our back, if we don't pay enough attention, she will go on Marble cage and start a beak fight. We tried to get them to bond over eating an apple together, but it only work if there's a hand separating them. We tried the same thing in a neutral room, but this time Pebble tried to attack Marble. They don't IMMEDIATELY jump on each other's throat, but we can't leave them together.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. Should I separate them? Marble always call out to Pebble, and they both mimick each other (when one start to preen herself, the other start soon after.) If they are separated for too long, they start screaming from one room to another, probably loud enough to disturb my neighbor.
I've read that i could simply place both of their cage in a neutral room and leave them be for a few day, but right now the only neutral room there is is my mother's room... And i'm not even sure that count as neutral since she sometimes have Pebble with her in it!
Should I keep a hand around Pebble and place them near each other for them to acclimate to the proximity? She does seems to relax a bit when i hold her.
For now, each time we catch Pebble starting a fight, we put her back in her cage. It worked when I had to teach her to stop biting too hard, but i don't know it will work for *this*...
So, if anyone have any idea, i'll be all ears.
Thank you for reading all of that. (and sorry for any mistakes, english is not my first language. )
Chocolach
I come to your humble abode of experienced bird owner because i've found myself in a bit of a pickle here.
So, for context;
In last december, my family gifted me a one year old green cheeked conure, as i had been talking about wanting to adopt one for the last two years. At the time, I had a job that only made me work in the morning, leaving me enough time to spend with my new bird.
I named that bird Pebble, and she took to her new life crazy fast. Not afraid of my hand at all, if anything, she was a bit aggressive, but easy to work with when food was involved. I was able to let her fly around after 3 day, and while she was quite the nasty biter at the beginning, nowaday she barely ever leave bruises. She scream as soon as we are out of her sight, always end up horny-cuddling instead of just cuddling (still working on that) and love to play on her back.
Unfortunately, I had to quit my job right at the beginning of january and search for something else. One month later, I did find something! But it's a 9am to 7pm job, with sometimes no dinner break, making it quite a long day for a lone conure.
Right now, my mother live with me, so i'm not worried about Pebble social need, but once she move out, the days would be long for my bird.
With that in mind, I decided to adopt a second conure almost 3 weeks ago.
I named her marble annnd... She is the total opposite of Pebble. Extremely hand shy, so much so that i wonder if she was truly raised near humans, or if she had some bad memories of hands from her breeder. After 2 weeks of hand feeding, the most i can get her to do is lightly nibble on one of my finger. Otherwise, hands are just a no go. She is younger than Pebble, still making what i believe are baby noises. Despite her not being able to go on the hand, we still let her out of her cage during our one-on-one time.
After a while, we started to slowly introduce the two conure. Making them see each other from afar, then a bit closer, adding the new one cage to the living room far enough, then putting the two cage next to each other. They don't seem to be aggressive towards each other... Until Pebble get out. As soon as we turn our back, if we don't pay enough attention, she will go on Marble cage and start a beak fight. We tried to get them to bond over eating an apple together, but it only work if there's a hand separating them. We tried the same thing in a neutral room, but this time Pebble tried to attack Marble. They don't IMMEDIATELY jump on each other's throat, but we can't leave them together.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. Should I separate them? Marble always call out to Pebble, and they both mimick each other (when one start to preen herself, the other start soon after.) If they are separated for too long, they start screaming from one room to another, probably loud enough to disturb my neighbor.
I've read that i could simply place both of their cage in a neutral room and leave them be for a few day, but right now the only neutral room there is is my mother's room... And i'm not even sure that count as neutral since she sometimes have Pebble with her in it!
Should I keep a hand around Pebble and place them near each other for them to acclimate to the proximity? She does seems to relax a bit when i hold her.
For now, each time we catch Pebble starting a fight, we put her back in her cage. It worked when I had to teach her to stop biting too hard, but i don't know it will work for *this*...
So, if anyone have any idea, i'll be all ears.
Thank you for reading all of that. (and sorry for any mistakes, english is not my first language. )
Chocolach
