Sep-Oct Red Sun Cuddle Bugs

Our family has been traveling the states to raise money to go to Colombia as missionaries, you can learn more about that at BeMagnified.org (you can even support us!). We have a friend who watches Sunkiss and Pyro while we go on big trips and we were able to bring Sunkiss and Pyro back home for a few weeks, but without their large cage. So, we made a little play area on a six foot table for them. They seem to like it really well, I wish there was more of it in the picture. It has been a joy to have our parrots with us again, we love our cuddly little conures :)

Flighted Parrots/ Not Clipping Wings

I was recently asked by someone who is wanting a parrot that can fly if I ever have any trouble with my birds flying into things and getting into trouble. This was my response....

Hi there,
We haven't really had many problems with having flighted parrots. Though, you wont want to run the ceiling fan when your bird is out of its cage and occasionally when I need them to go back into their cage they will fly up to our ceiling fan where I cannot reach them because they want to stay out longer. Usually, they go back into their cage really easy when I give them peanuts and treats, but if I give them lots of treats when they are out with me then they are less motivated to go back into their cage.
One important thing you will want to teach your bird right away is to fly to you. Pretty much you just call for it to come and give it a treat when it does. So if it were ever to fly up in a tree or something, you should easily be able to call for it and it come back to you. My birds can go outside with me and not fly away, if they get spooked or scared they try to go under my hair or down my shirt. However, I don't recommend taking your bird outside without lots of training inside 1st and even after training it would be a big risk. A great place to fly your bird might be a church gym, big building, or just at your house. So your bird is safe from hawks and other outside hazards.
I have never had problems with them flying into windows or toilets or boiling pots on the stove, nothing like that. I took my birds to the windows when they were younger and let them tap on it with their beaks and see that they can't go through it, and I even taught my female about the stove being hot by heating it up (not hot enough to burn) and having her feel it. But you might want to use more caution than I did with stove stuff and just keep your bird away from a hot stove when its out of its cage. And make sure to always keep an eye on it when it is out of its cage. Sometimes my birds escape out of their cage, but they always find me wherever I am in the house. The link at the bottom has some good info-
The 5th article down deals with flighted parrots. A great thing about flighted parrots is that you can potty train them to fly to their cage to go potty. yay :) enjoy

http://theparrotuniversity.com/articles.php

Sunkiss and Pyro below

Single factor sun conures- Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

How to weigh your parrot

I'm sure there are many ways to weigh parrots. Here is just a cheap tip. I use a gram food scale from Walmart that didn't cost much. With a little treat bribery the birdies don't take too long to weigh. Also, healthy Sun Conures should weigh between 100 -120 grams. Weighing your parrots often can ensure that their health is prime. If you notice a significant drop in weight it could be a sign of illness. Though, don't worry if your birds weight fluctuates a gram or two. Sunkiss sometimes will weigh 10 grams heavier when she is close to laying eggs.

Remember every species have their own healthy weight range so make sure you know what your parrot should weigh.

Red Factor Sun Conures Sunkiss, Pyro, and Sanchez

Pyro

Pyro

Sunkiss (front)

Pyro and Sunkiss making shadow puppets! :)

Sunkiss and Pyro's backs

Sanchez

Sanchez was hatched three days before my daughter was born. Enjoy the pictures of this little one. It looks a little different because it is going through a molt and still quite young. In a couple years this youngster will look like Sunkiss and Pyro!

_ Red Factor Sun Conures _

Red Factor sun conures, Pyro above and Sunkiss below, have just been let out of their cage this week after setting on eggs. They look more red than ever. 8-6-2010

Red factor Sun Conure on eggs #3

Sunkiss is on eggs again! She laid her 1st one Sunday June 27, 2010. She typically will lay one every 3 days until there are 3 eggs. Guess we will see what happens this time :)

The picture is from just minutes before Sunkiss laid. Pictured is Sunkiss on the left, Pyro on the right, and my 3 month old Amira.

I will candle the eggs in a week or so.

Flight Photos

Though not very easily attained, here are a few photos of our red factor sun conures in flight :) enjoy!

Our little bat bird lol

Red Factor Sun Conure Siblings

Hello everyone,

I have just around 7 weeks before our little daughter is born and I was looking for some advice on raising a human baby with parrots. I know parrots, especially sun conures, can be very loud and somewhat possessive. So if any one has had some experience in this area please let me know any tips, thanks!

My red factor sun conures are both 2 years old. The male is easy going but my female is a bit more bonded to me and a little possessive.

Christmas Time

Sunkiss and Pyro enjoying new Christmas toys. Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Happy Birthday Jesus

Sunkiss and Pyro this week flying around

my pretty birds

Sunkiss celebrated her 2nd Birthday July 24th

Happy Birthday Sunkiss!

Father's Day Special

Happy Father's day to all! I'm dedicating this post to my wonderful husband, who is a great Bird Dad. I Love You Honey!
You know you've found a wonderful man when he can be biten, pooped on, and still marry you - and love both you and the birds. I'm so thankful and blessed to have Aaron in my life to help me through all the challenges and adventures life brings. He's my best friend, soul mate, and Love of my life. I enjoy growing closer to him each and every day. I am so proud of him for all of the work that he does everyday. His disign work that is out of this world (http://www.vancegraphics.com/ ), his compasion for his work at the children's special needs facility, and especially for his Spanish preaching :) . His passion to tell others about Jesus Christ is so sexy (am I able to say that on here? since I'm married to him it should be alright). I'm just so thankful that he is mine, my one and only forever!



Happy Father's Day to the Dad that I grew up relying on more and more, God. I didn't have much of an earthly father when I was young, (...I guess I should send my mother a father's day card too, lol), but the Lord God our creator took care of me. I relized that I wasn't perfect and made lots of mistakes when I was around four years old. I understood that I had sinned and needed to ask God for forgiveness of my sins in order to go to Heaven when I died. I knew that Jesus died on the cross and rose again 3 days later and his blood covered my sins. So, I asked Jesus to save my soul and be my Lord. Since then He has been my great help and guide throughout my life. Thank you Lord for being with me always, Happy Father's Day! I Love YOU

More Bird Talk:

The 1st egg should hatch on father's day or the next couple days after. We really can't wait for them to come, I can here Pyro now still celebrating over the eggs (ha, he's screaming his head off). We still have 3 eggs, and they are doing fine. I did not candle them to see if they were fertile, I thought it could benefit my patience skills if I waited- ha, not really- I just didn't want to touch the eggs or bother Sunkiss and Pyro.

WARNING 'Doubles' -- Up Date

Pyro,

To the right, is standing guard at the entrance of the nestbox where Sunkiss is incubating their 3 eggs. He is still quite friendly and nice as long as Sunkiss is in the box, when she comes out he becomes very protective of her. He spends much of the day taking food into her while she's in the box making little whimpers :). Their 1st egg should hatch on Father's Day, how exciting!

As for the WARNING*CAUTION

-Single Factor sun conures crossed with Single Factor sun conures have the ability to produce Double Factor sun conures. These Double Factor Sun Conures have a reddish-bronze color covering much of their bodies. Cool right? Not exactly quite yet, it has been discovered that Double Factor babies do not live much past weaning, just several weeks old they die without a known cause. Necropsies have been done on such babies, but all they could come up with is that it is a cumulative gene, possibly too many red factors breeding. Currently we are trying to find the root cause and possibly a solution that could help save these babies.

The chance of a Single Factor sun conure pair producing a Double Factor sun conure is 1 out 4 chicks.

Please think about it before trying to breed two Single Factor sun conures.

Red Factor Sun Conure Eggs

Sunkiss and Pyro are up to 3 eggs!

The 1st egg was laid May 28, 2nd egg May 31, and the 3rd egg June 3rd.

Sunkiss eating like she's starving

SUN CONURE BREEDING

Single Factor (red factor) Sun Conures expecting parents (Sunkiss behind Pyro in pict)

Proud soon to be parents :) Sunkiss and Pyro have their 1st egg as of yesterday morning! Thursday May 28 :) whoohoo

Sunkiss' bottom is still bulging so we are expecting another egg real soon. First egg should hatch June 22-24

The day before she laid her egg

As both parents being Single Factor sun conures they have the ability to produce a Double Factor sun conure which has red covering about all of its body. One out of four babies should display this color mutation (25%).

Currently feeding my breeding pair: leafy greens, steamed vegetables- corn, peas, grean beans, carrots, roudybush pellets, grapes, blue berries, apples, bananas, boiled eggs mashed, beans, rainbow pasta, and quiko egg food(in separate treat dish- don't seem to be eating it)

>plenty of fresh water, vitamin block, two cuttle bones, added calcium vitamin to their water

My pair are using a stainless steal boot box, with aspen pine shavings as bedding in their nest box.

Potty Training Parrots

Sunkiss' good potty training example,

Ask if you have any specific questions :)

Few Training Tips

1. Start in the morning, before your parrot has done its 'big' potty

2. Take your parrot to the desired location you want in to go potty

3. Tell your parrot to 'go potty' or 'tinkle' or whatever command you want your bird to go potty to, I use the made up word 'brons'

4. It shouldn't take your bird very long to go potty so keep your bird there until it goes

5. Praise your bird tons, make it feel like he/she has done the best thing in the world!

6. Repeat this every morning, and when you have it out of the cage try to take it to the potty location every 15 minutes or so... or just watch for it to do its potty dance and take it to the desired location. If you pay close attention you will soon be able to recognize when your parrot is ready to go, and if you notice fast enough you can hold your birds tail down and take it to the potty location before it goes and repeat steps 2-5

have fun, your bird should get some grasp on this within 72 hours or less, and become a pro in a couple weeks.

My girl flies to her potty location when she has to go potty, so now I don't have to even take her there.

Red factor Sun Conures

Red Factor Sun Conures

Red Sun conures, Pyro and Sunkiss, in the car... (above)
Red Sun INFO:
Red Factor Sun Conures, also known as 'Single Factor Sun Conures', originated in Hawaii (though sun conures are native to South America).
Sun Conures get 12-15 inches in length and weigh 100-120 grams.
They eat insects, fruit, vegetables, seeds, nuts, etc.
It is usually good to feed a pellet based diet. A diet of only seeds can easily make a sun conure over weight and malnutritioned -this can make them more susceptible to disease, sickness, shortened life-span, and poor feather development.


Flighted Parrots

Video #1 without a harness

Video #2 with a harness

(*Note: you could fly your parrots inside a gym area if outside seems too risky)

It is much healthier for a bird/parrot to have their flight feathers. Clipping their wings is like handicapping your beloved pet because of fears and ignorance. "Flighted parrots get more exercise in 5 minutes than parrots with clipped wings get all day"- Dr. Hartman.
Parrots like sun conures, are very intelligent birds, so if you do have parrot that is flighted educate them.
-Take them to all windows and let them see that they cannot go through them
-Where ever you might have a fear of your parrot getting hurt take them there
A plus to having flighted parrots is that they can fly to their cage or perch to go potty and fly back to you. (I'll post an informative video how to potty train)

Babies, like the ones below, are mostly red-orange and green in color. The yellow color usually appears on their bodies as they grow older and after their first molt. A true 'Red Factor' sun conure should have reddish coloring on the top of its head.

Normal Sun Conure and Normal sun conure Chicks below, see the difference?

My Red factor sun conures

Single Factor suns

Babies available hopefully soon :) no prices yet