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Bed/Sleep Ideas for a Green Cheek Conure?

lobster14

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I have a green cheek conure for about 7 months now and he's 10 months old. Since we got him, it's been difficult to find the ideal sleeping situation for him. He sleeps very lightly and we often think he spends more time awake then sleeping. We've tried different rooms in our house, cage cover on, cage cover off, different lighting in the room, but he stirs very easily. He doesn't like it being pitch black, but he also doesn't like too much light. He doesn't like it dead silent, but also wakes right away and starts vocalizing when he hears anything. Right now he lives/sleeps in a large flight cage and he has a bird tent (two open ends) which we got for him to sleep in. That said, we actually are pretty sure he sleeps EVERY night on the bottom of the cage, actually crawling under his cage lining and sleeping on the wire grate. We've seen him napping in his bird tent during the day, but again, pretty sure he just sleeps on the floor which seems so sad!

Any ideas for our GCC? We've thought some type of bed we can lay on the bottom of the cage might be good but are a bit lacking on ideas. Foraging box with hay? Tissue box with hay? A flat log perch at the bottom of the cage? Not sure what would be the best fit. A friend also recommended getting a separate SMALL sleeping cage we put him in at night (and then put it somewhere away from any household activity or traffic), but we weren't necessarily looking to buy another cage but are open to it. Any thoughts on this situation to help our GCC sleep better AND comfy?
 

Shezbug

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Birds should be sleeping on a perch unless they have a disability serious problem with feet. The heathiest bed to provide for them is a perch.

I would not provide hay- it is often very dusty and is not something that birds need.

My guess is that he has not been given a good environment for sleep and he is being disturbed by being checked on or people moving about doing things and talking in the area he is trying to sleep- imagine a 3 year old being made to go to bed- they need no mental stimulation or they wont sleep till they literally drop.
Choose a room with the least activity and find the quietest spot in the room (far corner instead of at the doorway type of thing) and maybe start trying to provide him with a quiet place for sleeping and a routine that he can predict.
He has also been moved a lot or had many different new bed time routines by the sounds of your description so he may not yet have become accustomed to what you have chosen for him by the time you choose something else.
I would pick exactly how you want him to go to bed and stick with it so he learns the routine and becomes comfortable with it.
I find my guys all like a small night light- not close to them and not bright enough to light anything up really- just a little glow across the room. I also find all of them are on edge if the place is totally silent so I have the air purifier running 24/7 which provides enough noise to keep them comfortable.

I think @Mockinbirdiva or @webchirp have a conure that sleeps under the paper.
 

Mockinbirdiva

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Your conure is still a young bird. It’s not unusual for them to prefer sleeping on the bottom of the cage or tunneling under their paper lining. I had sleep boxes made for my birds ( six conures total) that hang in the back center top of the flight cages. They all have their own cage. Four of the six prefer to sleep on the floor of their cage instead of the open ended sleep box or on their platform perches. Their ages range from 13-16 years old. Three of them were hatched here ( I used to raise them) and the other three were weaned, five months and one one male around 2 years old when he came here. Every bird has their unique behavior traits. It’s quite stressful for some birds to transition from the nest with siblings to being a single bird with zero company of their own kind to an entirely new environment. They are prey for animals so they do have light sleep habits and reactive to sounds.
@Shezbug has great advice for you to create a routine. Without knowing where you have the cage in the house or what other house mates there are that may cause night time distractions ( other pets in the house? ). You might still cover the cage at night if it’s in a busy area. You could place a platform perch a couple inches above the bottom of the cage in an area where it won’t get pooped on from above or flat wood surface around 8x8 inches for your bird to sit on instead of the wire grate. @Macawnutz makes a neat bamboo tunnel tube that could be placed lower near the bottom to hide or sleep in. Don’t fret about the floor sleeping habit…. That may never change as he ages.
I’ll see if I can find a post I show one of my sleep boxes in.
 

Mockinbirdiva

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Found the photos… hopefully I can copy and paste with my phone.
dang… can’t believe I did that! Phones are hard to work with but it was a good challenge! This is what my sleep box looks like. The ends are open. The hole is for sneak peaking for the birds. :D 1672740676575.jpeg 1672740721021.jpeg

1672740676575.jpeg
1672740721021.jpeg
 

Mizzely

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Birds are prey animals and naturally stir very easily. :) A nightlight and an air purifier for white noise or a white noise machine may help him sleep.

You could try a platform perch to see if he will take take over sleeping on the bottom of the cage, but that's not an uncommon place for conures to rest.
 

webchirp

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Here is a thread you might be interested in...


Bitty sleep under his papers. Hachi did as well. Bitty is very elderly as was Hachi.
 

lobster14

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Thank you for all the helpful suggestions! We've started running an air purifier in the area and that does seem to help. We have a pretty noisy house with young kids, dogs, rabbits, and other birds, so sometimes our GCC will hear one of the kids or other pets and he wakes up. We tried having him in a much quieter spot of the house, but he almost seemed to dislike it being TOO quiet and would be screeching all night.

Helpful to learn that other conures also sleep on the floor. I wasn't sure if that was normal or not. We have other birds and they all sleep up high on their perches and are actually really quiet once they are covered. Just out GCC seems to be the only one often awake and rustling about through the night. I'm going to look through some of the links shared and have been brainstorming building something as well, perhaps similar to the sleep box shared in an above post. Thank you again and I'll post back with an update once available!
 
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