Our baby conur

Question
We got a new baby conur a couple weeks ago and she is about 4 months old. She always does this weird thing with her tail. Tucking it under the bars in her cage (on purpose) and sitting on it tucked under her. It seems like she is cleaning her tail feathers, but the way she does it doesn't look normal nor comfortable. She does it ontop of her cage when running around and at the bottom of her cage when she's inside it. If you have any Idea what this is that she does, we'd love to know.
Thanks!
--Ayla

Answer
Hello Ayla. Thank you for your question. Congrats on your new baby conure!
What you are describing doesn't sound like any sign of illness though it definitely is interesting.
Conures exhibit some very funny behavior sometimes...some that we understand the purpose of and some that we don't. I know my conure loves to fold his tail under him and sort of "rest" up against it...like he's propping himself up and can relax.
Another possibility is that your female conure could be beginning to masturbate however she seems too young to be already doing this (conures are not sexually mature until age 2).  Masturbating female birds like to rub the top of their tail against toys or cage bars whereas male birds rub the underside of their tail against things (I don't know if you know for sure that you have a male or female...the only way to tell at this age would be an avian DNA test. they are inexpensive and you can buy them online from any reputable bird website).
Otherwise, unless your bird is exhibiting signs of illness (tail "bobbing" when he is breathing is a sign of respiratory distress) or if the tail does not appear to be injured (bleeding, sore, damaged/lost feathers) i would not worry about it and chalk it up to odd conure behavior.  Good luck and I hope this helps! Alicia