My half moon conure is around 2 1/2 years old?

Question

if the woman who sold him to us was telling us the truth. She didn't have much knowledge about birds considering she works at a bird specialty store. Anyway, I had already gotten a couple of books and researched conures before we purchased him. Okay I shall get to the point rather than rambling on. My bird only knows three phrases: "Hello," "Hey pretty birdie," and "What are you doing?" I've noticed, that is one of the most common phrases for half moons. So, my question is even though he's 2 1/2 years old will I still be able to teach him new words and phrases? How much time should I spend per word?

Answer 1

First of all you can teach your bird words or phrases all their life so your bird can be 10 and learn new words. Sometimes some words take longer to learn than others. My bird learned "what" with in 48 hours. But she learned "peekaboo" in like 3 weeks. There is now way to know for sure how old your bird is but you can take an educated guess depending on the condition of the feathers, feet and beak. You should feed your bird a mixture in the diet between seed, pellet and fresh fruits and veggies. Feed him that now and if he is too skinny he will start to gain some weight. What was the bedding like on the bottom of the cage when you got your bird? Sometimes that has to do with the wheezing also when they get excited. What is the wheezing like? A hissing, a whooshing..etc. I found the gender of my bird through DNA sexing. It is about $150 through a vet but much cheaper through this site: http://www.avianbiotech.com/

I love this site it is awsome. They send you the collection kits and you can order as many as you kneed for free and you only have to pay for them if and when you send them back in with the DNA on them.

Here are some other sites: http://animal-world.com/encyclo/birds/co...

http://www.ehow.com/how_2059690_care-hal...

http://birds.about.com/od/behaviorandtra...

http://www.birdchannel.com/bird-magazine...

Good Luck, email me if I missed anything or if you has any questions.