# 1 - Sun conures are one of loudest small size birds

#2 - Sun conures can be nippy if not proper handfed, socialized and gentle handlings

#3 - Sun conures can be territorial & aggresive.

 Like most parrots, Sun conures are territorial.  They do protect & defend their cage and their favorite bird or person.  They can not be house together with other birds unless socialized together when they are very young. 

#5 - Like all parrots, they can be very messy in your home environments.  Their feathers, dander, wastes, food... can be everywhere. 

#6 - They are much harder to take care compared to cats or dogs.  They need to interact with you daily.  Off course, you need to spend many hours per week to clean after them and socialize them, otherwise they are not good pet choice.  

#7 - You need to set a rule - Don't spoil your sun conure.  A basic step up and down are a must.

#8 - They are extremely active & playful

#9 - Therefore, they need a ton of toys, playgym ... to be happy

# 10  - They ar extremely social animals - keeping two sun conures is a must.  No matter how good care and good companion you are,  two sun conures are so much happier.  They keep each other busy and happy.

#11 - Sun conures should be outside of its cage everyday if possible an indoor aviary is highly recommend. 

# 12 - Sun conures will scream for attention if neglected.  When they don't get the interaction that they need.  Sun conures will scream for it.

#13 - Sun conures love to chew

Your furnitures, clothes, cell phones and remote control are sun conures favorite places to hang out and chew on.

 #14 - Are sun conures good with children?

All children should be taught to be gentle around animals & how to handle them properly. 

#15 - Your responsibility

There are no parrot breeders out there can give you a best bird.  Informed new owners are the most important factors to determine the best possible pet birds.  You should:

 Do your homework - Research as much as you can about sun conures

Buy a sun conure book

Buy a parrot behavior book

Buy a possitive trainning book

Join a sun conure forum....

That is right. They tend to call loudly as a way to greet everyone.  They are not only loud, but also make a lot of frequent screeching screaming sounds.   Especially, if they are being ignored.  Therefore they are not suitable for apartment livings or noise sensitive households.   We have a flock of african grey parrots that our neighbors love their noises but not our sun conures because they make so much high frequent noise.   It is common that people give their sun conures up due to noise problems.

Red factor sun conures enjoyed warm baby formula

There are many different noises that sun conures make, from simply noise to alarm warning calls.  They are trully like watch dogs.  They make a lot of noise when they first see you or intruders.  However, they are quiet down to completely quiet when you are there.

Making noises is their natural ways to communicate in a dense rainforest.  That is not much we can do to change that.  However, sun conures are quite down in a calm household where they interact and socialize daily.

Red sun conure and normal sun conure

 They are exceptional beautiful, sweet & freeflight.  The above picture was taken a couple years ago.

Sun conures are one of the most beautiful birds.  They mostly have yellow on its head, shoulder and belly.  Some have more reddish color on its cheek & belly.  Usually the reddish or yellow colors will be more dominant as a bird matured.  Its primary feathers are deep blue.  Its beak, iries and feet are black.

Juvenile sun conures are more lighter in color.  Its body mostly light yellow or green.  Its primary feathers are deep blue.

Red factor sun conure babies have more red on its head, entire belly and on its upper body.  The reddish color is more intensed as the babies get older.    

Young red factor sun conures look more like jenday conures with reddish color on its front & belly and mostly green on its back & deep blue on its primary feathers.

The yellow feathers grow out when a young red sun conure is about 3 months old.  At this time red sun conures look more like normal sun conure due to its yellow feathers tranformation on its back.

Many ads advertise to sell red factor sun conures.  Many of those ads have "normal" sun conure but look red.   They are not red factor sun conure mutations.  Most sun conures when they get older, their belly & face look very red but when you put a real red factor sun to a normal red ones.   The normal red sun conures seemly look just like normal sun conures.

Sun conures have red & pied mutations.  They are exceptional beautiful birds.   Pictures can not captures their real stunning red color. 

Red factor sun conures are dominant genes, Therefore, They do not produce a split like green cheek conure mutations do.  If you pair a red factor sun conure with a normal sun conure,  you will get 50% red & 50% nornal sun conure offsprings.  However, the rule does not set in stone.  We usually get 3 red babies per clutch and one normal.  

The red color will get brighter and more dominant as the babies grown up.  

When you pair two red factor sun conures, you will get double red factor sun conure offsprings.   Most breeders don't breed two red because of less genetic variations can cause inmatured death in its offsprings.

They are extremely social birds. 

Therefore, two pet sun conures are highly recomended.

Sun conures will demand attention and they need a couple hours of physical interactions each day.   If they do not get attention, they will learn to scream for that or bite the owners.  It is best to keep two pets sun conures although they are much noisier.  However, accompany keep them happy and active that no owner can provide.

They love to play

They can spend hours of playing.  They are easy going & bond with everyone in a household.

Sun conures are very smart

They learn very quickly from openning its cage door to step up command.

 They love to chew

Sun conures are very curious birds.  They want to know everything and chew everything on their way.  A lot of toys can keep a sun  conure intertain itself for hours and always supervise when out of cage.

Talking ability

Sun conures are not known for talking parrot.  However, they may learn afew words. (Utube)

 Sun Parakeets are tropical birds.  They must be housed indoor with temperature of 80F.  Setting up cage must away from drafts which can kill them.

Sun Conures - Cages: 

Sun conure cages should be in a well lit area.  Living room or dinning room are the best

Sun conures are extremely active.  Therefore, they need a big cage to roam and a lot of perches for them to chew and fly to. 

We recommend a parrot cage at least 24"x22"x 30" with a playtop or separate playgym is a must.  A larger cage is best for them because they are able to make short flights.

cage bar size should be 1/2" to 3/4".  Horizontal bars are the best as a bird can climb up and down much easier.

We recommend some economy HQ cages like models HQ flight cage

32"x23"x60" .  The larger the cage is the better.  Flight cage is highly recommend.

Perches:  Avariety of perch sizes are best and should be 1/2" in diameter.  Water & food should always place away from perches, however, toys should be hand 2-3" to a perch.

Perches prevent their tails being damaged by hanging and dragging on a wiremesh of their cage.  Perches should small enough to fit to their feet.  Be sure to provide them a lot of fresh branches to chew that make them active, strong and healthy.

Cage set up location:

you should set up your bird cage in a living room a dinning room.  The cage should be close to a wall in a well lit area but not direct from window or sunlight. 

 It also needs away from fan, draft free area.

 Like other parrots, sun conures are messy eaters.  Cleaning after them takes fair amount of time and real commitment.

 Generally pellet diets are best for your sun conure, you should feed 60-70% of pellets.  Sun parakeets always prefer seeds although they are higher in fat and less nutritious than pellets.

Food quality & variety are a must for your sun conures

We feed our birds  with:

1. Seed mix: We mix Higgin Sunburst Medium and Higgins Autralian Diets plus millet spray, hemp seed...They also eat small sunflower seed sizes, however, they are very high in fat content which can make your sun conure overwieght.
2. Pellets: small conure mixed pellets of Pretty Bird, Roudybush & Zupreem Fruitblend... 
3.  Fozen veggies: We also give them frozen mixed veggies ( corn, brocoli, green bean...) - Just microvave in a bowl with water, grain and serve them warm.
4.  Fresh veggies are what they like the most: fresh corn, brocoli, green bean, green and red pepper, carrots,cucumbers. Also lettuce, spinach.  Discard them after a couple hours
5. Fruits: apples, oranges, grapes, blue berries, mangos, star fruit, pomegranates, raisins.  Discard them within 2 hours
6. Others: They also like boiled eggs  & canary egg foods.
7. Basically every food that is good for you is best for a bird
8. Clean, fresh, filtered and chlorine-free water should change 2-3 times a day.  ( should change morning, evening & before your sun going to sleep)
9. Some breeders give their birds extra supplements.  We don't.  However, we only give them some cuttlebone or calcium for our breeding pairs after their breeding season.  If you give your bird pellets, you don't need to feed them extra supplements.

It is really hard to get a sun conure eating pellets. But we always leave a lot of food options for them and slowly switch to feed them with a pellet base.

We keep separate bowls for each kind of food.  Pellets, egg food, crushed nuts and corn ( sell at Latino market)... in one bowl.  Fruits & veggies in one, mixed seed in another one and finally a large bowl of fresh and clean water.

Food that is poisonous to birds

Do not feed your birds fruit seeds, chocolate, avocados, alcohol or caffeine as these can cause serious medical problems

Avoid food: lettuce, cheese, potato...

Also,  non-stick cookware and appliances can release fumes hazardous to your birds health -

Sun conure parakeets will breed at around 2 years of age.  Both male and female look the same so DNA sexed is a must.  Before you set them up, let them in a large aviary so they can choose their own mates.  Sun conures do aggressive to their mates as they are not compatible.  Colony breeding can be acchieved  however, most breeders breed a pair in a single cage.

Breeding cage should be 24"x24"x 5'.  They are tropical birds so can not be housed outside during a winter. 

Nestbox sizes are 12"x12" with 2" in diameter entrance hole.  Sun conures usually lay 3-4 eggs per clutch.   They incubate for about 24 days.

Do not disturb them as they may break their eggs or mess up their nests.

Sun conures usually good parents so just give them avariety of food and they will take care of their young fine.

http://www.sunconure.com/

http://www.concentric.net/~conure/conures.shtml

sun conure

Sun Parakeets north of Bayonet Point, Florida 22 Jul 2009

Bird Dad, Aaron, with red factor sun conures Pyro and Sunkiss 

Sun conure - Leo's Blanket Trick