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A week ago, I bought a 4-1/2 month old dusky conure. Extremely tame, wings not clipped. He is so tame that he wants to spend time with me ALL the time. When I open his cage, he flies right to me. He is not even interested in my other birds I have in the same room. He'd rather be with a human being.

Problem #1: How do you teach such a tame conure that his cage is not a prison? When I put him in his cage, he starts pacing on the bottom of the cage or climbs back and forth along the sides of the cage and continues doing so as long as he can see me. In the meantime, I do the housework chores and cannot disappear from his view.

Problem #2: I noticed that he gets so anxious when he is in the cage, he at times won't even eat, because all he is interested in is being with me or maybe just being out.

For the last two nights in a row, while I had him on my shoulder, he was making a strange noise along with moving his wings up. This constant noise/chirping and wing movement reminded me of hungry baby parrots (I used to handfeed parrots).

I felt his chest and it did seem bony, not full as it was during the first few days.

I probably did not do the right thing, but I worried so much, I rused to a pet store, bought Exact baby parrot formula, and fed him with a syringe. He ate a good amount ending up with a nicely rounded chest and his chirping and wing movement stopped immediately. He settled down on my shoulder and fell asleep.

He is over 4 mos old and I know he was weaned. What do you think I should do? I am really worried that I am not doing the right thing.

I give him the same food he was eating in the pet store, Pretty Bird pellets, which IMO he likes a lot. But when he eats them, he makes a terrible mess with many pellet pieces all over the floor so I am not sure how much he actually eats and how much is wasted.

I have an appt. scheduled on Monday with an avian vet. It is a free checkup for a new bird.

Here he/she is:



Thank you.

I have a blue crown that I bought as a baby. I fed him formula until he didnt want it any more. cant really remember how old he was when he stopped but he did refuse to eat it. my little guy always wanted to be with me also until I clipped his wings.I leave his cage open all day and he has learned to stay on top of his cage on his playpen.he has lots of toys to play and that seems to work you might try that

My dusky was about 3 years old when he came to live with me. His wings were clipped and have remained clipped since he's been here. He has a large cage which is open all the time unless I'm going to be away from home for more than an hour. There is a table next to his cage with a travel carrier and a small nesting box where he spends some time when he feels like it.
His favorite thing to do is play. We have lots of games we play together and he will give up and stop eating, getting scritches from me or anything else to play the games.
Wow, you're lucky to get a free new bird avian vet check-up! Hopefully, the vet can tell you something about your bird's need to have formula. Maybe he/she's not as old as you think?
Good luck!

Some birds regress back to wanting to be hand fed when moved to another home it wont hurt to give a handfeeding once a day for a while . Take your vets advice on this. For some reason or other neither my birds nor I liked pretty bird pellets. Not one of the avian vets I ever went to recommended them. Try Harrisons or one of the others.Heres a list to call for samples of pellets.----Yogi


Harrisons 800-346-0269
Kaytee exact 800-529-8331
L/M Animal Farm 800-332-5623
Lafeber Premium 800-842-6445
Scenic Bird Food 800-327-7974
Roudybush 800-326-1726
Ziegler 800-841-6800
ZuPreem 800-345-4767
My birds get Harrisons,Zupreem & one gets Roudybush special diet.