Nanday Conure Question

[Christina]

First, let me give you a little background. I have a nanday conure that I am fostering. I am told she is around 7 years old (she had layed some eggs so we know she is a she). She went from her first home for several years to a foster home, where she stayed for about 3 months, then she came to my foster home. She is fully flighted. She has been with us for about a month. She is a mean little brat. She flys at me to bite me. She seems fine with my son and my husband, although, she has just recently started to bite my husband. She LOVES my son. He can hold her wings out for examination, hold her upside down, cradle her, kiss her. She sits with him for hours and grooms his eyebrows and kiss his face, its an amazing connection. For all you conure specialists out there...here are my questions:

1. Is her aggresive behavior normal for a conure? I am getting mixed signals on this, I posted on an exclusive nanday conure site I found and the best advice they gave me was not to shake her off when she is biting like a vampire. They all seemed to say their conures could be very aggresive toward people they don't like. I'm thinking it could be she is molting, nesting (she goes under my son's dresser and shreds paper), nervous in her new environment.

2. When introduced to new environments, is it natural for a conure to be overly aggresive like she is? I'm fine with her not liking me, I can respect her space, but she is terrorizing me with her flying/biting. She is the smallest bird in the house and has me running! :unsure: I don't want to clip her wings, as this is a new place and I don't want to add undue stress to her.

3. In your experience with conures, if given a stimulating, conforting environment, will she settle into at least just ignoring those of us who she has deemed "unacceptable".

4. Is there anything different I should do for a conure that I wouldn't do for my ag?

I like her, she is just as cute as a button, and if she would just stop trying to draw blood, I would pay her adoption fee and keep her. I am hoping its just a nervous nesting behavior. That she feels my son's room is her territory and with her nesting instincts is acting in a "normal" way at this point. That the overly aggresive behavior will diminish as the season changes.

What are your opinions and thoughts?

[Tari]

I am sorry I know little about Nandays but I do know something about conures and have met some really mean ones as well as really sweet ones.

One thing I would suggest is go ahead and do a wing clip. It well not add to her stress any more then you seem to stress her. It well grow back but it might help you gain her trust is she has to depend on you to move her around.

It sounds to me like her problems are more about her being passed around like unwanted baggage. Going from home to home is stressfull on parrots.

She really needs a forever home to help her work back some of her issues.

I hope I have helped.

Judy or someone with a conure might have better ideas for you.

[judygram]

Thanks Tari, I do have a sun conure and she can be sweet as sugar but she has a mean streak in her also. She has taken a disliking to one of my granddaughters and she will lunge at her if she comes anywhere near her. She did bite her on her lip one time and scared the bejebbies out of her but left no scar.

 

She is really possesive of me if she is on my shoulder and that is where she is the most dangerous. Most people cannot get her off of me if she is there, but she cuddles up to me and kisses me but don't let Jesse, my granddaughter get close or she will lunge for something to grab onto.

 

Her wings are clipped but she can still glide and hover easily but I have never had her actually fly at and try to bite anyone like yours does Christina.

 

Has anything happened to cause this aggression, I ask because Sunny was fine with Jesse until she came over to me while Sunny was on my shoulder and tried to get a kiss from her like I had just done and she took offense, I guess she thought Jesse wanted to take her away from me and she was not having any of it.

 

My advice is continue to work with her and see if it improves with time, but like Tari said she needs a forever home, she has been passed around and she probably feels like she will be here for a while and then off to another place, she needs some stability right now.

[Christina]

From what I have learned about her (her name is Tookie), she was the woman's bird, but Tookie spent most of her time with the lady's teenage son. The woman would be the one to take Tookie and place her back in the cage...every time. I figure maybe Tookie associates me coming to get her with going back into her cage. Although, she will draw blood if I even let her step up onto my hand from her cage to take her out. We have made some progress...I compeltely backed off of her, and just let her adjust, and now she only flys at me in my son's bedroom. I've stopped shaking her off, and just place my hand on her back and this seems to stop her biting me (although, sometimes I'm pretty quick and duck the attack and she flys back to my son :ohmy: ), then when she isn't biting me, I hand her back to my son. I'm trying to show her first off...she can't keep me out of the room, second off, I won't hurt her, and I won't put her away...we can live in peace, we don't have to be friends but we do have to tolerate each other. Although, to be truthful, she is cute as a button. I really like her despite her bad attitude. I agree with the passing her around. I'm not a "collector" of birds. Allot of foster homes end up with ALLOT of birds, they just don't want to pass them on, I have not had that tendancy at all...but this little bird is tugging on my heart strings. Perhaps its her obvious desire to want to love someone (in this case my son), she just tries so hard to love him, and have him love her, she devotes all her time outside the cage to sitting with him. At any rate, I haven't even posted her up for adoption, although, I have some great pics of her, that would have her adopted in a heartbeat, I can't bring myself to put her out there yet. I don't know if I will. Thanks for the advice, anything else you can think of that I can do for her, let me know. Oh, she doesn't play with toys and won't eat anything other than her mixed seed she gets. I don't think she has ever seen anything to play with or eat other than her seed. She will eat at the dinner table with us. She had to be barred from that for a little while until she stopped flying at me in the kitchen, now she stays put and is welcome to eat with us. Sooo bribery isn't working with her. Although, I give her fresh veggies everyday..and a hot breakfast and a hot dinner, she still won't take it and eat it, unless she sees us eating it. Big sigh...she needs sooo much work. Poor thing.

[birdgranna]

I have a blue crowned conure that was quite nasty but now is pretty good. I did clip her wings as she was flying at/biting everyone and everybirdie but me. Since clipping, she stays on her own cage and is now much better when someone else goes to pick her up. She is secure with her own space but will leave it and not try to fly back. She took to biting ME if anyone cme near while she was with me, butis also better at that now as I just made her step up a few times after she did that(birdie pushups;) )You are not in control with a flighted, unpredictable bird.

[Christina]

I'll probably end up clipping her until she settles down. I might wait until after the spring, let her hormones come down and see if she settles in a bit more before I do that. It's good to hear that they can (hopefully will) settle down.

[BMustee]

All the Nandays I have worked with do seem to bite more than other Conures, and I have also noticed that conures in general can become overly attached to a person and become VERY aggressive defending their "chosen one". I had a Sun that would never leave my shoulder and when he was full flight would divebomb my family and the other pets. I ended up giving him to a couple because I could not risk the health and well-being of my oldest cat any longer (19 and almost blind & deaf).

 

If I were you I would clip her wings now...don't wait because her behavior will probabably get much worse without it done. Because of her history she very well could be a forever one person conure and seems to very much love your son. I would not push to get her to like/tolerate you because some birds just decide they don't like you and that is that...it's pretty much set in stone. Like you said, she sees you as someone trying to get between you and her "mate", and from what I have seen for myself it can get worse if you keep pushing her.

[judygram]

BMustee wrote:

I have also noticed that conures in general can become overly attached to a person and become VERY aggressive defending their "chosen one".

 

I see this in Sunny, my sun conure, and she is very aggressive toward one person, my granddaughter.:dry:

[BMustee]

Otto really didn't like my sister...he didn't like anyone else but it seemed he had it out for her.