Taming Parent Reared Orange Winged Amazon

[paws69]

Hello everybody I need some help please, I have an orange winged amazon named Boo he/she is about 14 weeks this week and I have had him/her a week, it is an unsexed parrot so for time and effort I will continue with he. Boo was parent reared and was not handled or fed by a human. I am in the process of taming :- so far will take food from hand through bars, will also take food from fingers inside cage. I have also started Target training with a wooden chopstick which some days goes well and others just not interested and wont do it? if my hands get too close or touches him he goes to bite fluffs up all feathers and makes a sort of growling noise. I would like to know if I am just tying to rush things as on occasion he will put his foot on my arm while I am target training but when he does he quickly takes It off. When target training inside cage it always seems to be trying to get out. I was silly and got him out the day after I got him and he just flew everywhere. So I would like to know how do I get to the point of touching him and getting him out I want to be able to get him out and be able to touch him........PLEASE HELP im just worried I am not going to be able to tame him.

[Wolf]

I think that you are just moving too fast. You have concentrated on training instead of taming and bonding with Boo. Also you "mistake" in letting him out to fly was actually a great move to make. Your bird needs time out of the cage on a daily basis, normally a minimum of 3 to 4 hours each day. Since you and Boo are not yet bonded the best time for this is in the evening so that he sees you put his dinner in his cage and he should return to the cage shortly after that on his own. but you need to spend the majority of your time with him on earning his trust and bonding with him.

[paws69]

Hi Thank you for your reply, ok so how do I bond with Boo better what things can I do? the thing is when I let him out I had no control over him and he just flew everywhere constantly. I was under the impression you had to teach step up and the target training to get him out as I had to be the one letting him out and putting back in?

[Wolf]

I don't know where you got him from but it is a bit unusual for them to not have been hand fed some or to not have been handled by humans before being sold, this makes me wonder about what he may have been treated like prior to you acquiring him. Probably just me, but then it may have some bearing on his behaviors in the near future. Anyway for now, it appears that you have really accomplished quite a bit in the area of training in the two weeks that you have had him.
The thing is that, he hasn't had enough time to get to know you and as shown by his current behavior, he doesn't have a lot of trust or confidence in you yet. Apparently you do know something about taming and bonding as he will take treats from you both through the bars of his cage and directly from you with the cage door open.
Mostly the process of gaining his trust and bonding with Boo is simply a matter of talking to him and letting him know what a good boy he is, but it requires that you pay close attention to his body language to see when it is time to progress to the next level or not.
Given where you are at with him, I think I would hold of for the next week on any training and just spend time talking to him, with lots of ' Good boys' thrown into the mix. The talking and just being with him is what reassures him and gives him the opportunity to get accustomed to you as well as your voice and offering him treats with the door open, since you have gotten that far, allows him to understand that you bring him good things and his willingness to take them calmly is him extending trust to you. While some people like to target their birds to step up , I prefer not to. I think that holding the treats, some of them, so that he needs to step onto your hand is better as it is still an act of trust on his part to step up. If when you are working with him in any capacity and his body leans away from you then you really need to slow down on whatever you are doing at that time as he doesn't trust you enough to do that yet. Also I never bring more than 3 or 4 treats to any session as it is not about feeding him, it is all about trusting each other. So for the next week or so ,I would work on just talking to him and reassuring him and offering him about half of the treats in a manner that he needs to step up to get to them, if he doesn't do it then just keep talking to him and when he doesn't step up back off and let him get the treat in the usual way and talk a little and try again until you run out of treats, I never leave with a treat that has been shown to them, I make sure that they get the treat. It pays big dividends in the overall process.
In the best of circumstances it is best that he will step up for you to return him to his cage, but regardless of that he still needs to get out and fly about to get some exercise, and flying is really the only physical exercise that counts with birds. Yes to begin with they fly all over and usually pretty erratically on top of that, but they get better and more controlled with time out and practice. Since they need 3 to 4 hours of free out of cage time each day anyway, this can be used just like the time spent talking in his cage as hanging out with flock mates is a bonding activity. So is sharing food, which is why treats work as well as they do. If you schedule his time out of cage prior to feeding him, then when his time is nearly up, you make sure that he sees that you are placing his food in his cage he will get the idea pretty quickly that it is time to go in and eat. Once he makes this connection he will return to the cage all by himself.
I hope that this helps, if you need more detail on how to proceed let me know.

[cml]

Hi Thank you for your reply, ok so how do I bond with Boo better what things can I do? the thing is when I let him out I had no control over him and he just flew everywhere constantly. I was under the impression you had to teach step up and the target training to get him out as I had to be the one letting him out and putting back in?

I agree with this, dont let him out until you can make going into the cage a positive experience.
Just letting a parrot out in the beginning is going to cause more issues than it will help imo.

Target training is an awesome way of getting your parrot where you want it to go. This is really the only thing you both need to have learnt (both you and your parrot need to be able to do this reliably). With targeting you can target the bird back to, and into, the cage again - making it a positive and rewarding experience to have out of cage time. Step up isnt necessary, but it helps.

Wolf, why I disagree with just letting parrots out when that advice is given to beginners, is because unless the owner has a way of getting the parrot back in again, like the bird knowing step up or it's target trained, letting the bird out will often lead to the parrot newbie to panic when they cant get it into the cage again. Over the years I've read countless of posts of this on this forum, where letting the parrot out pre-maturely has resulted in new owners chasing their parrots around, and in the end often having to towel their new birds (and since this is something new to them as well, its NOT a positive experience for the parrot but rather the complete opposite - it may break and utterly destroy the little trust and bond there is.)

Your bird needs time out of the cage on a daily basis, normally a minimum of 3 to 4 hours each day. Since you and Boo are not yet bonded the best time for this is in the evening so that he sees you put his dinner in his cage and he should return to the cage shortly after that on his own.

I agree completely, they should have a minimum of four hours out of cage time, but it needs to be positive! Putting in the dinner is not a guarantee of getting the parrot back in the cage.

Paws69,
I strongly reccommend you to follow Michael's approach, which can be found here:
http://trainedparrot.com/taming

[Wolf]

I agree that food in his cage nor is the approach of darkness a guarantee that Boo will return on his own to his cage. But neither is early stage target training. The fact that the bird is getting hungry as well as it is getting very close to bedtime for him is a pretty strong incentive for him to return to the cage. I would hope that if the owner thinks that Boo is not yet ready to make the attempt or if the owner is not confident that he can get the bird to return without a problem that he would hold off until his is more confident of himself and/ or the bird. I, myself have not encountered a problem with this as of yet, which is not to say it couldn't happen.
This is one of the reasons that I like it here on this forum, there is more than one way to approach this matter and I for one appreciate that you have a different approach to offer to the owner of this bird as it offers him more than just one opinion and a different approach that may indeed suit him better. I would not have offered my suggestion if I thought it would create a less than positive experience for this bird. So thank you for your input, and please feel free to offer your opinions whenever you feel like they can help. I am very glad that you are here to help this person and his bird.

[Pajarita]

For one thing, I SERIOUSLY doubt anybody breeding amazons would not hand-feed or co-parent so he must have had some kind of human exposure already. The alternative is inconceivable as it would mean HUGE lack of knowledge and complete disregard for the babies on the part of the breeder! For another, this is a VERY young baby we are talking about. The smaller the bird, the faster it leaves the nest and lovebirds don't leave it until they are three months old so a 14 week amazon is a little baby and still not only completely dependent on humans but also very pliable. He needs lots of soft food, a quiet place with his cage half-covered and placed at your eye level when you are standing up (it will make him feel safe) and very, very gentle handling - no training at all! Not until the baby is grown, comfortable in his new home and bonded to you. Believe me when I tell you you do NOT want a male amazon with detachment issues in your hands! He will become very aggressive when sexually mature and nobody, including you, will want him (unless you can find a nut like me).

So take your time, spend hours with him (at the right times, after his breakfast and before his dinner), approach him carefully, slowly and observing his body language as Wolf recommended. Talk to him until you run out of breath, sing to him even if you can't sing worth crap (like me -LOL), whistle, offer him treats and do let him out. There is no need to chase a bird that doesn't want to go back into his cage and scare/traumatize the poor thing in the process but you have to wait until you can approach his cage without him getting all tense. Once you see you can do this and offer him a treat from your hand and he takes it, open his cage door about one hour before night falls (this time of the year and where I live -Northeast USA- I would do it at around 6:30 pm and don't forget to put a perch outside his cage), walk away a few feet and spend the next 30 to 45 minutes talking to him the same way you've been doing every day for the taming sessions. Then, when the sky is getting dark (this would be a little after 7 pm -your lights will be off, of course), put his dinner in his cage (this only works if you don't free-feed protein since the morning and he has already learned that he will get his seeds or pellets for dinner) and walk away again but, this time, make sure you only show your profile to him and that you are doing something like reading or working in your computer, something like that. If he doesn't go back into his cage for his dinner on his own, do not panic and go chasing after him. Simply leave the room and come back only when it's dark (the room needs to be bird-proofed). 99 times out of a 100, the bird goes back into his cage to eat his dinner and sleep but there is that 1% that doesn't the first time. Again, don't panic. The room will be so dark you won't be able to see where the bird is (unless he's still on the outside perch or on top of the cage) but you can either use night goggles (hugely practical with difficult birds) or a very small flashlight which you will have pointing to the floor and lift for a single second to illuminate one part of the room at a time just to aim it down again so the light doesn't bother or wake the bird up. When you located him, approach him slowly and silently with a towel in your hand and very gently grab him with it and place him inside his cage (birds hardly ever move in the dark). Then, once you have the door secured, open the door to the room so there is the tiniest bit of light going into it and he can see well enough to climb to his roosting perch. But, if you don't feel comfortable doing this, don't worry, just let him sleep wherever he is (even outside is cage) and I bet you a dollar against a nickel he will be inside the cage eating his seeds once the sky begins to get light in the morning (5:45 am).

There is always a gentler way of doing things if we take our time, don't panic and think about them long enough.

[paws69]

Hi all I just wanted to thank u all for your replies. I wanted to just say I am a little perplexed as to why a bird who has been parent reared would be missed treated in some way ? Who better to raise a baby than the parents? Plus I have read that it can be better an I also just want to add just because a bird was hand reared doesn't mean it wasn't mistreated so its neither here or there....Anyway I am feeling much better after your comments on my progress an will update a bit later on further progress hopefully like wolf said it is nice to read different opinions and ideas from others I feel it really helps

[Wolf]

I didn't recall anyone saying that your bird was mistreated, so I have just went back and reread all of the posts to be certain. while it was not stated that your bird was mistreated, it was a concern expressed among other by myself and I understand your thoughts, and will try to clarify why it is that I was concerned.
Parent raised birds have the opportunity to learn much more from their parent birds than those who are totally hand raised and so this is better in many respects, but the baby bird is not prepared to accept humans readily unless at some point the breeder begins to interact with the bird prior to weaning the baby, which leads us to the best way to raise baby birds which is co parenting. In co parenting the parents provide for and raise the baby bird but the human also assists in this process by feeding the baby some and mostly by handling the baby so that it readily accepts the human and looks forward to the interaction with the human. this produces the most acclimated and most secure bird possible, it is the best of both worlds so to speak.
At any rate before the bird is sold it needs to have been properly handled so that it is not afraid of the human who purchases it. Now, it will be a little scared of the new person but if the baby was handled the way that it should have been then this fear quickly passes and the baby begins the process of bonding usually in a matter of just a day or two. This is even more important with some species of parrot than with others, and an Amazon is one of these in which it is even more important that they be properly handled from birth. This is because the Amazon generally like to be touched less than many of the other species, they are not normally a cuddlely type of parrot and would rather interact with you from a short distance as opposed to the hands on approach.
These are things that any breeder should be aware of and it is something that not only should they address by properly handling the baby parrot, but they should also make sure that the buyer is aware of. it is not that we think that the bird was actually mistreated, it is more of us being concerned that if the breeder did not properly handle the baby bird ,then in what other areas did the breeder not properly address or even just ignored.
Does this help you to understand what our concern is about ? I know that you are new here, but the majority of us really care about the well being of your bird just the same as if it were our bird, and only care about what is best for your baby. The only difference to me is that you are my eyes and ears into the baby's world and I will be happy to explain my reasons for anything that I say concerning your bird, nor will I be offended in any manner if you disagree with me, after all we really want the same thing for you to have a happy, healthy and well adjusted bird.

[Pajarita]

Parent-raised amazons don't usually make good companions for the greatest majority of people because there is no imprinting. And, about this, let me make a clarification. There is imprinting and there is bonding and these are two different things. Imprinting makes a bird not be afraid of humans and accept them as part of their lives. Bonding is when they love you and that takes time and, sometimes, it never happens. A human-imprinted baby would be leery of his/her new owner the same way a human baby would be anxious and nervous if taken away from his mother and placed in the care of strangers but, with patience and love, a human-imprinted bird will eventually bond with his/her human the same way an adopted child loves his/her adoptive parents. A parent-raised bird will never think of a human as part of his family because he is parrot-imprinted. He can learn to trust, become tame and even appreciate the human's company but it will not really bond the same way because he knows he is a bird and you are not. Personally, I think that all parrots do much better when the parents are allowed to raise them because it's much healthier both from a physical as well as a psychological point of view but, when it comes to pets, the difficulty arises when the species is large and naturally aggressive - like amazons are- because it doesn't matter if a budgie or a tiel is parent raised but it matters if the bird is large and strong enough to hurt a human.