Alex and Paulie: a Nanday
What are Conures?
1. Conures have long, pointy tails and look like little macaws and come from the same places macaws live.
2. Conure bodies are usually slender compared to their heads
3. Conures have eye rings and come in many colours and sizes
4. There are five groups in the conure family with the largest group being the Aratingas. Aratinaga means, "Little Macaw"
5. Conures can be noisy, messy and stubborn
6. Conures can bond with only one person and be territorial about their cages
7. Conures can be very good with other animals or birds in the family
8. Conures love to chew and take baths in their clean drinking water
9. Conures are curious, smart, comical like little clowns, and very, very busy
10. Conures sometimes sleep on their backs or under paper
11. You can not tell the Boy and Girl conures apart without a blood test.
But either boys or girls can be good pets so maybe it doesn't matter so much.
12. Conures can be loving and playful like a puppy
13. Conures are usually charming and beautiful
14. Conures live a long time. Usually between 25 to 40 years.
15. Just in case I forgot to mention it, Conures are relatively noisy birds!
Some are more noisy than others so if you want a Conure be sure to DO YOUR HOMEWORK!
What do Conures Eat
In the wild, Conures eat seeds, fruits, vegetables, berries, nuts and bugs. They eat small bits of gravel from the ground.
At home, the conure should get as many healthy types of food as possible like seed, sprouted seeds, pelleted food, fresh fruits, vegetables, and share healthy human food like pasta or scrambled eggs.
A conure usually soaks their food so having clean water is very important.
Sometimes a conure wants to jump in the clean water for a bath so you have to change the water again.
Foods they should never get is alcohol, caffeine, chocolate, iceberg lettuce, raw potato or cabbage
If they don't eat well or eat enough pellet, it's a good idea to give them extra vitamins.
Like all birds, they have sensitive lungs and have to stay away from chemicals, smoke and Teflon pots.
The Nanday Conure
The Nanday Conure is the only member of his group, the Nandayus Nenday.
The Nanday Conure comes from South America and can live 30 to 40 years.
Nandays sometimes talk and hand raised babies can be very affectionate.
They are very beautiful. They have black heads and beaks, brown eyes, whitish eye rings, blue on their chest, tails and wings.
Their bodies are a pretty green colour. But their nicest colour is their bright red socks.
Nandays have loud, annoying voices and usually make a lot of noise in the morning and evening.
In between, they are not too bad.
A person who can not handle a noisy bird should probably NOT pick a Nanday.
They contact their flock with loud calls and you become their flock.
Nandays get used to new things very quickly, are pretty brave and calm. They spend hours playing and chewing.
Nandays are usually pretty healthy and not prone to disease.
Nandays are good flyers even if their wings are clipped. Sometimes having clipped wings keeps them safe.
Nandays are very smart and can sometimes learn tricks.
Nandays need a lot of toys to chew, bells to ring and things to play with or they will get bored and unhappy.
Nandays sometimes bond with only one person or territory. They need to spend time with their favorite person every day.
They can get very protective if anyone tries to get too close to their person or cage.
All About Paulie
Paulie is about five years old and we know Paulie is a boy because he had a blood test.
Before Paulie came to us, his name was Romeo and he belonged to a lady who loved him but could not care for him any more.
She bought Romeo as a baby when she had no husband or babies and spent a lot of time with him.
When she got married and started to have babies, she also worked every day and poor Romeo was not getting very much time at all.
Romeo was bonded with the lady and did not like the husband or children.
He became very unhappy and started becoming aggressive.
He was ripping apart his bed, biting people and making a terrible racket.
The lady decided that even though she loved him, she could not give him the love, time and attention he needed.
She decided the kindest thing to do would be to find him another home.
She gave him to a bird rescue group and we took him in our house as a foster bird.
We were just going to care for him until he found a new home but while he was with us, he bonded with me.
I fell in love with his charming personality and we decided to give him a home.
We bought him, his cage and all of his toys.
I gave him a new name after watching a movie about a Conure named Paulie.
His favorite toy is his bell. He plays the bell game where you slide his bell one way on the cage and he grabs it and slides it back the other way.
He makes a big happy racket with this game.
Paulie eats pellet but is crazy for his seeds. He yells and yells for them when it is feeding time.
He eats fresh fruits and vegetables but prefers fruit.
Paulie loves to share pizza, apples, carrots or celery with me. He likes peanuts and floats the shells in the water like little boats.
He soaks everything in his drinking water so it gets changed a lot.
He likes to try to squeeze his entire body in the water just after his cage and water have been cleaned.
Paulie chooses me and nobody but me. Whenever my Mom is near he yells, "Get out of my house! Get off of my planet! Get out of my universe!"
But he snuggles with me and loves to have me scratch his head for him. Paulie does not like ANYBODY to touch his tail.
Paulies likes to ride around on me and chews up my shirts so we buy special clothes for that at Value Village.
Paulie has a really loud voice and only one note. We wish he would learn another song but that's the only one he knows.