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From: gnome@olivey.olivetti.com (Gary)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Conures
Message-ID: <31019@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 19 Oct 88 23:55:52 GMT
References: <192@ur-cc.UUCP>
Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com
Lines: 49

From article <192@ur-cc.UUCP>, by bmg1@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Brett):
> 
> When I put him on my shoulder, he climbed around, made some clucking 
> noises and played with my hair.  Well...I decided I had to have him.
> The price, however, is kinda steep for me.
> $540...

Well, first of all, conures (to use a phrase from Chuq) are nuclear
powered airhorns that can blast your ears out when they want to.

> Conure anecdotes?  Conure advice?
> He's about small parrot size, mostly green with red around the head (i think)
> Does this price seem about right?
> brett (and Bonzo)

Sounds like it could be a gold-cap (maybe) which is what my guy is.
And that would explain the price, since gold-caps are hard to
find, not hard to breed, just hard to find.

Birdie (no comments on the name, please) is very intelligent and
loves to "help" me while I'm working on things by hanging off the
front of my shirt, getting a close look at things and making
comments in conurese -- sentences like "Fez ack sez iss fiss?"
or "Ack fez ex ass gest!" (?)
He also translates for me while I'm talking about important
issues.

Birdie sleeps either under the covers with me or under a facecloth
in his cage at night (I guess gold-caps sleep in tree-holes in the
wild).  He's a poop-on-command bird, like his step-brother Syd, a
lesser sulpher-crested cockatoo.  Because he doesn't like to
poop in his cage, he tends to unload about 1/10th of his body
weight in the morning -- so it's the first thing I do with him
in the morning is to hold him over the toilet and tell him
to "go for it!"

Recently, Birdie has gotten very intolerant about having strangers
in his territory to the point where he can't really be left out
of his cage (or my hand) when people are over.

As far as rolling-over and things like that, I'll sometimes flip
him over and try to tickle him under his wings.  He acts just
like a puppy and gets all fluffed-up and excited.

He's a great bird and I'd really like to find him an unrelated
gold-cap female, but goldcaps are pretty rare.  I'm still
looking.

Gary