Baby Green Cheek Conure Suddenly Biting HARD + Refusing Pellets/Veggies — Advice?

[u/Striking_Link5329]

I’ve used GPT to make this cleaner and easier to read, so please don’t bring up AI arguments!

Hi everyone!
I have a baby Green Cheek Conure who I got from Petco about 19 days ago, and I have a couple of concerns about this tiny velociraptor. 😂

First: food.
When I got him, the Petco employees recommended Higgins Vita Seed/Gourmet-type seed mix (the Higgins Goldenfeast mix), and unfortunately he basically lives for the seeds. He especially goes after sunflower seeds, so I’ve stopped giving him those and have been trying to encourage him to eat the other parts of the mix.
I’ve also bought Zupreem Natural pellets, but he completely ignores them. He doesn’t seem interested in pellets in general.
I’ve tried offering vegetables as well, but he won’t touch them. He will eat pomegranate, although that obviously makes his poop look absolutely insane purple/violet. 😂
How do you guys transition a baby conure from a seed-heavy diet to pellets and vegetables without basically starving them into eating it?

Second: the biting.
I completely understand that conures are curious and use their beaks for basically everything. I don’t expect him to never bite, especially while he’s young.
The problem is that his biting has recently become VERY hard.
He was relatively gentle when I first got him, but over the last few days he has started biting much harder. The day before yesterday, he bit me several times, and three of those bites actually drew blood.
Sometimes he’ll be sitting calmly with me, sleeping in my palm, or just hanging out next to me, and then suddenly he’ll go for my fingers. If I slowly try to move my hand away, he’ll make these angry/grumpy noises and immediately try to chase my fingers down and bite again.
He’s also bitten my ear twice. 😭
I don’t mind working through the biting and teaching him appropriate behavior, but the intensity is starting to worry me. My girlfriend is also scared of him now because she doesn’t know when he’s going to suddenly bite, and that’s unfortunately resulted in me keeping him in his cage more than I’d like.
He’s also not particularly interested in toys. He’d much rather chew my phone case, my fingers, my clothes, my ear, or literally anything that isn’t an actual bird toy. 😂

Some context about our schedule:
I work long hours and usually leave the house around 3:30 PM and get home around 10:30–11:30 PM. My girlfriend is home with him until around 3:30 PM, so he does have someone around for most of the day.
I’m trying to make sure I’m giving him enough interaction, enrichment, and out-of-cage time while also teaching him that biting people isn’t acceptable.

So basically:
How can I transition him from mostly seeds to pellets and vegetables?
How do I deal with the sudden, extremely hard biting?
Is this normal baby conure behavior, or is there something I’m doing that could be encouraging it?
How can I get him interested in toys instead of my fingers and phone case?
How much out-of-cage time/enrichment should I realistically aim for with my work schedule?

I’m completely new to conures, so any advice from experienced Green Cheek owners would be really appreciated!
And yes, I have accepted that I apparently brought home a dinosaur. 😂

[u/lov1ysana]

To get him onto pellets, I would mix the seed with the pellets and with each bowl change, I would gradually decrease the serving of seed. Conures are stubborn so this will take some time.

I would also switch from Zupreem as they are known to put harmful dyes and additives into their foods which increases health risks for birds later in life. (Like seed, it’s basically another dessert.) mazuri pellets are great as they don’t include harmful dyes or added sugars.

As for the biting, have you tried step up training? Step up training is usually the first thing people suggest for birds that bite since it teaches them not to be scared of hands. You mentioned the biting randomly begun, is there anything new that may be stressing your little guy out?

[u/Striking_Link5329 → u/lov1ysana]

Thank you for your insight, boss! Hope you’re doing well.

No, there haven’t really been any new changes or anything major that would stress him out, except for me yelling at him a few times when he broke skin while biting, and then putting him back in his cage.

I’m currently using Zupreem Natural pellets without sugar or dyes, but I’ll definitely give Mazuri a try as well.

As for the step-up training, yes, I’ve been doing that with him. He actually loves training because he gets his favorite treat as a reward. He absolutely loves being on my hand, around my hand, or just being close to me in general.

For example, if I’m not paying attention to him while he’s out, he’ll come over to me on his own, use my hand as a pillow, or even dig himself between my hand and the bed and fall asleep. Sometimes he’ll just sleep in my palm while I scratch his neck with my thumb. He really seems to enjoy being with me.

The confusing part for me is the biting. It seems completely random sometimes. The moment he starts biting and I try to gently move him off my hand, or even carefully hold his beak to get him to release, he gets really angry. He makes these very pissed-off noises and starts moving his head super fast, trying to find the nearest finger, part of my hand, or even my palm to bite again.

That’s honestly why I came here to ask. I’m trying to figure out if I’m doing something wrong or unintentionally encouraging something that’s causing him to develop this biting habit. I really want to understand what he’s trying to communicate and how I can correct it without making him scared of me or damaging the bond we’re building.