parrot taming

Question
I'm having a really hard time with my sun conures I want to know a way to make them stop biting me and so they can be more friendlyI would also like to know how to breed them and what steps i need to take. Also if you know how to explain on how to clip their nails and beak and feather thanks

Answer
Hi, Fabina.  Thanks for posting your questions.

I'd like to start off by saying birds prefer other birds to humans.  In other words, you are going to have a difficult time taming your Suns because they are most likely adult birds and have learned (from humans) that biting/being aggressive towards humans causes their humans to leave them alone, which is exactly what they want.  Single parrots in a home make the best pet birds.  When you have more than 1 parrot in the home, the parrots tend to bond to each other/prefer each other to their humans and, thus, don't "need" their human companions much any more, except to feed and care for them.  In addition, during the breeding process, a pair of parrots doesn't want anything to do with humans in most cases...their primary job/concern when breeding is to produce baby parrots and safety of their eggs/babies is THE most important thing in life to the parent birds...this is just Mother Nature at work!  

Biting in parrots is a learned behavior.  That is, at some point in time, your Suns have learned that all they need to do is bite or lunge at a human and this causes you to pull back from them.  Most humans then become very leary of interacting with them for fear of being bitten.  This is exactly what the parrots want you to do, so by pulling back/away from them when they bite, you are actually reinforcing/rewarding this bad behavior.  What you should do when they bite/lunge at you is continue to proceed with whatever it is you started to do, scolding them verbally along the way.  This means you may get some nasty bites, but it teaches the birds that their bad behavior doesn't cut it with you.  You have to have control/upper hand over your birds, not vice versa.  Parrots are like toddler children...they will do whatever it takes in order to get their way.  On the flip side, you MUST ALWAYS reward good/positive behavior in a parrot in order to teach them the difference between right and wrong (NEVER reward bad/negative behavior).  In other words, when your Suns don't bite (on the same occasion when they used to bite), you MUST reward them to show them the difference between the 2 behaviors.  Just like a human toddler...your toddler might be treated to ice cream if s/he behaves well, but if s/he behaves badly, no treat tonight!  Same principle with parrots.  They use psychology with their humans in order to get their way (parrots are very smart)!

All said, I think you need to decide whether you want pet Suns or breeder Suns.  If you want pet Suns, it's going to be difficult to tame them at this point in time because there's more than 1 parrot present, etc., but then again, it also depends on your skills at taming, how much time you can devote to taming them (must be consistent and daily effort), you'll have to work with each one individually, and maybe even have to separate them into individual cages...depending on the individual personalities of each of the birds.  Having tame Suns during breeding season is out of the question because that's just not a parrot's personality at this important time.  When any of my tame pairs go to nest, I just forget about playing with them for a few months because it just isn't going to happen!  However, when they are not breeding, it is possible to tame them (with proper skills, time, etc., like I stated above).  Keeping their wings clipped is also a must if you want to tame them down.  A lot of times (and this depends on the individual parrots), the best breeders are birds that are not tame.  However, there are breeder pairs that are tame when not breeding and monsters during breeding season...they revert back to tameness after breeding season is over.  

Breeding - You must be certain via DNA sexing that you have a true male and female pair (Suns are not visually dimorphic, i.e., you can't tell their sex just by looking at them).  They must be pair-bonded to each other.  Two males, 2 females and/or a pair can be "friendly" toward each other, but not necessarily be pair-bonded.  Best sign of pair-bonding is when the male feeds the female (beak to beak).  They must be healthy and on a good diet (for when they go to nest and babies arrive and in order to produce healthy babies).  Once you witness the male feeding the female, you can put up a nestbox (no nesting material inside needed).  They'll take it from there if/when they are ready.  Depending on where you live, breeding season may not begin until spring and may end around Aug/Sep (some areas, parrots may breed year round).  I must emphasize at this point that you need to decide BEFORE breeding your Suns whether you intend to handfeed the babies or not.  There's MUCH, MUCH to learn about handfeeding BEFORE babies arrive.  Also, there's much to learn about the entire breeding process BEFORE you even allow your birds to breed...too many things can go wrong during the process and you need to know what to do before anything goes wrong (you can't wait to learn when something happens because any delays could be disasterous).

Clipping nails/wing feathers - This information is on my website.  As far as clipping beaks is concerned, you really shouldn't have to do this unless there is a beak misalignment problem (or other health problem).  In this case, it's best to have the parrot seen by an avian veterinarian to determine the underlying cause.  Once the underlying cause is determined, the vet can usually fix the problem and/or show you what needs to be done regularly, if anything.  It's always a good idea to keep a cuttle bone, mineral block, "beak conditioner" or something similar in your Suns' cage(s) to assist with beak sharpness.  You can find these items at pet stores where bird supplies are sold or on the internet at parrot supply houses.  If you don't know what you are doing when clipping a bird's beak, you can cause irrepable damage.

If you have additional questions/clarifications after reading/reviewing my website, please come back.  Thanks.

http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/birdinfo/index.html

Chrys