{"id":3478,"date":"2016-10-14T22:08:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-15T04:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windycityparrot.com\/blog\/?p=3478"},"modified":"2016-10-14T22:08:35","modified_gmt":"2016-10-15T04:08:35","slug":"get-companion-sun-conure-buddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.windycityparrot.com\/?p=3478","title":{"rendered":"Should I Get My Companion Sun Conure a Buddy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Veronica<\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n

Hello again. We have chatted before. thanks for the previous advice. <\/span><\/p>\n

We have a one-year-old female sun conure and we are thinking about getting her a buddy. Perhaps a male sun (red factor) or just another parrot critter. I<\/span>f we chose another species, what would you suggest as a good companion for her, not including parakeets for cockatiels?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hi Veronica and thanks for asking Windy City Parrot for advice on your situation. <\/span><\/p>\n

I am sort of the sun conure expert around here I guess, having owned 3 personally at various times in my life. My first I bought as a baby, just weaned. The second a lady gave me as a young bird but she passed away in a very unfortunate accident and the third I did the final hand feeding only to have him fall in love with my boyfriend so, when we split up, I let the sun conure stay with the ex because Mango would have missed him so terribly and I had to think of what was best for the bird. <\/span><\/p>\n

I have to ask you a couple of questions and once I have the answers I will be able to provide more advice (so please get back to me on it): WHY do you want to get your female sun a buddy? And is your female \u00a0sun DNA sexed to be sure she really is a she? Okok, I’m going for 4 questions: Do you plan to house them in the same cage? And why do you rule out parakeets?<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m going to answer your question from personal experience. When my first sun conure, SunDance, was 10+ years old she made it perfectly clear she wanted a mate. So we let her choose one.<\/span><\/p>\n

My elderly mom and I shared a condo that was all-tile flooring, but had plenty furniture and wall decor in the great room where SunDance had her house (read cage if you prefer). We had area rugs on the floor and the neighbors never heard any real noise from her unless they were outdoors. She was not a screamer, just the usual morning welcome calls, goodbye screech when she we told her “bye, we’ll be back soon”, and hello calls plus the normal conure screams of fear from lawnmowers, hawk-like birds or shadows, flashing lights, etc., and an occasional contact call which, if answered, ended the calling. She was quiet for a sun conure. We were very happy with her noise level and so were our neighbors and friends. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, since she wanted a partner\/mate, I decided to let her choose one. She did. Now we had two sun conures making all the above normal calls each BUT we also had the contact calls between the two, even after the quarantine period and they lived in the same huge cage. <\/span><\/p>\n

You have no idea how loud two sun conures calling in unison or to each other can be. Suddenly it seemed the very earth echoed every call. And when bonded birds, even if not mated, make contact calls it tends to go like this: she calls, he answers, she answers, he answers ad nauseam ad deafness….you get idea. Suddenly it was nerve wrecking. <\/span><\/p>\n

That is one issue with adding either same gender or a pair of sun conures inside a home. You’ll read more about these two in a future Birdie Brunch post. But the point is, one bird makes some noise, the other bird makes some noise but in this situation 1 plus 1 can equal 12+ in the noise increase!! Not to mention there was twice as much mess to clean up, but if that were the only issue, things would have been happy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually because the two did not mate (I didn’t know at that early state of parrot learning that breeding wasn’t a great idea anyway) and the noise was making mother and I want to run away from home, we were forced to rehome the male. Had they been forced to live in two cages I think the noise would have been much worse.<\/span><\/p>\n