So excited to be here :D

[Lukask]

Hello everyone! My name is Kim. I got my first bird, a Green Cheek, in October. Her name is Luna and she was hatched in July. I did quite a bit of volunteering in a bird sanctuary prior to getting her. I was always more comfortable with the 'toos and macaws. Getting a bird was completely not planned for, especially not a Conure. I happened to stumble upon her on Craigslist, went to check her out, and you know the rest. It was love at first sight. I just got her a ZooMed light and am in the process of swapping her feed from Zupreem to Harrisons. She is such a sweetheart but I am really afraid that she will become a "one person bird". I'm a college student and live alone. I dont have company over often, if rarely. I'm afraid she will become too attached to me and will hate everyone else. I've tried "recruiting" some friends to come over to just hang out with Luna and I, but they dont understand the love of birds. They just think they fly around a poop everywhere. Honestly, sitting at my place tends to get boring since I dont have cable or other modes of "entertainment" so I cant blame friends for not wanting to sit here. haha. I have added a pic of her below. She is in the process of molting. Hope my pics work!

 

[Ash]

Luna is so beautiful!
Also Welcome to the forum!

 

[Rio Mom]

Welcome! Luna is beautiful! I know what you mean about the rare guest not wanting much to do with your bird. I would love for my River to be socialized with more than just me and my husband. Guests are usually too worried about being bitten or pooped on.

 

[Mamanda]

Welcome & Congrats on your GCC!

Bird Poop, Bird Schmoop! It's just a little poop! I guess no one understands that better than a bird lover.

 

[oled]

What a beauti, welcome

 

[lene1949]

She's beautiful... Welcome to the forums...

Since you live alone, there's a very high risk/chance that she'll become a one-person bird.. I have the same thing with all my animals... I try to get my kids to come over, but it doesn't happen very often, and they also reckon that so******ing birds is unnecessary... So, when they visit, the dog has to go outside and Max has to stay in his cage... So the visits are not much fun for me...

For me it probably doesn't matter too much, as I'm a few short years off retirement, but for you who's only young, will probably marry and have kids one day, a well so******ed bird would be nice... and I'm sure it can be done later in the birds life...

Good luck with your Luna.

 

[Remy]

What a cutie!

I don't have many visitors either, so I take Puck with me all over the place. He loves going out, and gets grumpy if I don't take him out for a couple days. All my (few) friends know him, and he likes all of them. I also like to take him with me when I run errands. If it's a place that doesn't allow pets, I wrap him up in my scarf. Today I didn't have a scarf with me, so I put him under my shirt while I ran into the grocery store. Sometimes he does try to come out, or at least peek his head out, but he's pretty good about it. He steps up for strangers, and loooves all the attention and praise he gets from them! Sometimes he won't want to go home, and he'll get mad and bite me when I try to pick him up, because he thinks I am going to take him home. LOL.

 

[Lukask]

do you use some kind of flight suit? Or do you trust him to not fly away?

 

[wenz2712]

Luna is gorgeous and welcome to the forum

 

[roxynoodle]

I don't have many visitors either. But, when I do, it usually goes ok. My Nanday conure likes most visitors, especially men to flirt with. My Blue Crown was very shy with new people, but as long as they didn't go straight for her cage, sat down and acted normal, she would begin to warm up and say, "hello".

I've only one visitor since getting the new amazon but it went ok once I told him to get his fingers out of the bird's cage!

I've found as long as I keep people from going straight up to the cages, and letting the bird see them interact with me first, it's fine. You will have to watch for even adults sticking fingers in the cages or ha ha, trying to play with the bird's toys. I guess they think they are like dogs and want them to play with the toys with them, but generally they don't!

Once a friend was here with her young and very energetic son. We had gone into the kitchen and suddenly realized he didn't come with us. We found him jumping up and down in front of the Nanday's cage and I thought, uh oh. But then we realized she was loving it and bobbing along with him. So maybe they are more forgiving of children, I don't know, lol! If an adult she didn't know was doing that she would have been screeching in warning to get away from her.

Ah, I do now remember a friend getting a very bad bite. She had seen me kiss the Nanday. I went into the bathroom and she decided to try as well. I came out to find her holding her very swollen lip. So it's a good idea to let people know that when a bird first meets them especially, they can't expect it will necessarily interact with them the same way it does you.

 

[Nakiska]

Congratulations! Conures are such wonderful companions, I know...we have a yellow sided green cheek named Franklin. Big parrot personalities in a tiny conure body

Even though we have a fairly busy household, kids and their friends, I still wanted to make sure Frankin was WELL socialized and not housebound, so when I could, I took him everywhere with me. He LOVES to go bye bye!

We got him at just 10 weeks old, he was clipped from the breeder and never flew. I've let his wings grow out, and even with his flight feathers, he'd never flown. Just prefers to climb and walk/run everywhere. He's almost 9 months old now. I bought him a flight suit in preparation for wanting to take him out and leave him flighted. We just got it, so now I have to train him to accept it....and wouldn't you know it, he FLEW for the first time last week? I couldn't believe it, I was sitting here at the computer and he flew over to me! His landing was not good, but he FLEW! I was soo proud of him! And SUPER glad I got the flight suit when I did.

However, he's not at all keen on the idea of having clothes on, this could take a while!

Anyway, good luck with your beautiful conure. Birds really do make the best companions in my opinion.

Toni

 

[roxynoodle]

I do love all animals, but I agree birds are high on the list as the best companions. We just can't help but appreciate their intelligence, and also their learning our language to communicate with us. And it's so much fun to see their clownish behavior to show off for us, and to share our meals with them.