Are they ready for the conure personality?
Ask the sitter, honestly, how they feel about being beaked. Green-cheeked conures explore the world mouth-first, nip when overexcited or unsure, and bond hard to the people they like while ignoring the rest. A sitter who flinches and withdraws at the first nip teaches the bird that biting works; one who stays calm and redirects it onto a toy keeps the peace. Ask whether they have handled small parrots before, and how they would respond to a conure that climbs into their hair, rides a shoulder, and objects to being removed. The fit question matters more with this species than the fee question.
Company, play, and the daily rhythm
Ask how the sitter's day will give the conure what it actually needs: hours of company, supervised time out of the cage, and play that uses its brain, because a bored green-cheek is a loud, destructive one. Ask where the bird will be while they cook, work, or have visitors, and who else will want to hold it. Agree which treats are training currency and how many is too many, since conures will campaign for fruit all day. Ask about the sleep arrangement by name: most green-cheeked conures settle best with a quiet, dark sleep cage or covered space away from evening television and traffic.
Baths, chewing, and household rules
Ask whether the sitter will offer the shallow bath dish or gentle misting your conure enjoys, because most green-cheeks bathe enthusiastically and a sitter who skips it for a week hands you back a dusty, itchy bird. Then walk the chewing rules: this species dismantles wood, leather, cables, and remote buttons with real speed, so ask what the out-of-cage room contains and what will be moved or covered. Ask about the hard hazards too: nonstick cookware fumes, open doors, other pets, and unsupervised time loose in the house. Specific answers here are the difference between a holiday and a homecoming problem.
Health signs and the vet agreement
Ask what would make the sitter call the vet, and supply the conure-specific list so you can hear them take it seriously: a bird sitting fluffed and quiet at the cage bottom, changes in droppings, sneezing with discharge, loss of appetite, or any bleeding. Green-cheeked conures hide illness like other parrots but their normal baseline is so busy and noisy that a quiet conure is itself a symptom worth reporting. Leave your avian vet's details, your contact route, and written permission to seek urgent care. Ask also how medicines or supplements you already give, if any, will be handled, and insist the routine is followed exactly as written rather than improvised.
How you will hear from them
Agree the reporting rhythm before you go: a daily message with a photo or short clip of the conure playing, eating, or bathing tells you more than any summary, because you know this bird's normal sparkle and they do not yet. Ask the sitter to report nips, escapes, broken feathers, or skipped meals the day they happen, not in a roundup when you return. Decide one channel and keep everything there. Running the whole stay through KinsLe Messenger keeps every message about your conure in one per-pet thread, so the sitter's questions, your answers, and the daily photos never scatter across apps.