Rescued Amazon Biting

[dburk79]

I adopted a rescue Orange winged Amazon three days ago and she is very aggressive when you go to handle her. I adopted her from a rescue and they believe her story goes as this. She was owned by someone previous cause she will do certain things like take treats reluctantly and with a few bites will step up. They believe that her owner didn't clip her wings and she got out. She was seen being attcked by wild birds and fell to the ground to exhausted to fly away someone from the rescue was able to scoop her up. He took a few nasty bites. She was with her foster for 3 weeks and now me. I know she has been through a lot so I am asking for some advice on whether I should just give her a cooling down time before I start to handle her? She readily accepts treats from my hand and comes to me to get them. Please help!

[Wolf]

Well if the rescues belief in her story is accurate then the fact that she was not clipped is the reason that she is still alive for you to give her a home. Most of the escapes of this nature are due to the human taking the bird outside without it wearing a harness or being in a travel cage although some do escape due to negligence in closing doors and such. All of my birds are unclipped as it is safer for them to retain their ability to fly as well as mentally and physically healthier for them. For these reasons I truly hope that they did not clip her wings, although I don't suppose that they didn't clip her.
Three days is a very short time and she is very likely to be very much afraid of both you and her new environment at this time. It will normally take about 30 days for her to adjust to these things, and depending on what she has been through before she came to you it could take much longer.
The fact that she takes treats and comes to you for them tells me that she is wanting to trust you and in fact is trying very much to trust you. So just be patient with her and do not pressure her to do anything. It would be good for her to have some out of cage time so I suggest that for the first couple of times that you open the cage door for her about two hours before dinner time to see how she reacts to being able to come out. If they clipped her wings, pad the floor so that she doesn't hurt herself if she attempts to fly out of the cage. Dinner time for her should be about two hours before dark, so try this about 3 in the afternoon. This would give her a little time out for you to see how she responds and will give you the time to see if she will go back in for her dinner. She may just climb about on her cage. If she is out of the cage either on it or on the floor she may just step right up when you put her dinner in her cage without biting you. If not you can always turn off the lights when it gets dark and put her in then pretty easily.
I don't know how much you know about birds but we would be very happy to help in anyway that we can. This time would be a very good time to assess her diet as well as just spending a lot of time talking to her. It would be a good time to learn about her body language and learn how to read it. Right now and for the next month all I would concentrate on would be earning her trust, putting her on a healthy diet, and learning about her body language so that you can interact without getting bitten.

[Pajarita]

I would say it will take longer than a month. She has been through some terribly traumatic experiences and one after the other, the poor thing! First she lost her human and had to fend for herself (which, of course, she couldn't do and almost died in the process -she was given medical attention with complete bloodwork at the rescue, right?), then she went to somebody she did not know when she was terribly weak from a physical point of view and, merely three weeks later (a second in parrot time), she went to you. Of course she doesn't want you to handle her! She is, most likely, mourning the loss of her human still and very confused as to what happened...

Yes, please, give her time to recuperate both physically and emotionally, she can't even begin to bond with you yet, it's too soon. Put her on a good fresh food diet (parrots don't do well with free-feeding of pellets or seeds but amazons are particularly prone to fatty liver so, with them, is a complete no-no!), a solar schedule and establish routines. Let her out of her cage (was she DNA'd a female or is this just a 'gut' feeling?), talk, sing and whistle to her, offer her a treat every now and then and just let her get strong. She will tell you when she is ready to get closer to you.