I currently own two conures, a black capped conure, and a green cheeked conure. Genders unconfirmed. BCC assumed male, GCC assumed female. Some bird adoption context in the next paragraph, situation context in the following.
My partner and I purchased our first conure (BCC), George, in July 2020. He was 2 years old at the time, and had become the “mascot” after spending over a year and a half there. He didn’t get along well with other birds, as his assumed mate had been sold a while before without him. After a while, my partner and I had less time to spend with him and noticed a bit of aggression and restlessness because of this, so we had him do a little “daycare” for a weekend at his pet store to see if he would get along with any other conures. That’s when he met our newest conure (GCC), Nova, in April 2021, when she was 4 months old. They have their little tussles, but otherwise get along fairly well. They spend almost all, if not the entire day free-range outside of their cages under a UVB lamp (separate cages but side by side), and are covered up at the end of the night, to sleep in separate cages.
Nova (gcc) is a 1y/o bird that is VERY timid. She runs away from everyone, despite (failed) training, and though our schedules don’t allow us to provide consistent training, we do try to provide as routine a schedule as possible. My partner has a younger 12y/o sister, Beccy, who likes to occasionally observe the birds, and has never done anything to provoke them. Lately, we noticed that Nova gets really fluffy and follows Beccy (still on the cage) around wherever she goes, but as soon as she gets close, she bites Beccy as hard as possible. We weren’t sure why, so we warned Beccy to be cautious. Nova has never had any negative or physical experience with kids that I’m aware of. I had my two sisters over last night (10 and 12) and noticed that Nova did the same thing to them too, just as they were walking passed, the 12yo got a little too close and got a decent wound on her finger.
Is there an explanation or even a solution to this?
My partner and I purchased our first conure (BCC), George, in July 2020. He was 2 years old at the time, and had become the “mascot” after spending over a year and a half there. He didn’t get along well with other birds, as his assumed mate had been sold a while before without him. After a while, my partner and I had less time to spend with him and noticed a bit of aggression and restlessness because of this, so we had him do a little “daycare” for a weekend at his pet store to see if he would get along with any other conures. That’s when he met our newest conure (GCC), Nova, in April 2021, when she was 4 months old. They have their little tussles, but otherwise get along fairly well. They spend almost all, if not the entire day free-range outside of their cages under a UVB lamp (separate cages but side by side), and are covered up at the end of the night, to sleep in separate cages.
Nova (gcc) is a 1y/o bird that is VERY timid. She runs away from everyone, despite (failed) training, and though our schedules don’t allow us to provide consistent training, we do try to provide as routine a schedule as possible. My partner has a younger 12y/o sister, Beccy, who likes to occasionally observe the birds, and has never done anything to provoke them. Lately, we noticed that Nova gets really fluffy and follows Beccy (still on the cage) around wherever she goes, but as soon as she gets close, she bites Beccy as hard as possible. We weren’t sure why, so we warned Beccy to be cautious. Nova has never had any negative or physical experience with kids that I’m aware of. I had my two sisters over last night (10 and 12) and noticed that Nova did the same thing to them too, just as they were walking passed, the 12yo got a little too close and got a decent wound on her finger.
Is there an explanation or even a solution to this?