Lilac amazon biting my face and being more aggressive Why?

[Wolf]

It may be effective over a period of time but it will also teach him to resent being put in his cage and this will result in him refusing to step up because he knows that he is going to be put in the cage. It will also result in him biting you every time you try to put him in his cage. The blanket over the cage is probably the most severe mental torture that you could inflict on your bird. This is different than covering the cage so that the bird can sleep at night. The reason that this is so is because when it is done during the day time the bird is not ready to go to sleep and is wide awake and can hear you and your movements, a parrot is highly social and it depends on its flock for its sense of security as well as for actual protection from predators. A parrot in the wild is never alone for any reason from the time its is laid as an egg until the time of its death. I could go on about this for a while but it is easier to just say that it is not a good thing to do and it will hinder your efforts to earn your birds trust and it scares the bird.
It is better to place the biting bird down on the nearest safe surface or perch with a stern verbal " no bite" or something similar and then ignore the bird for a few minutes, 5 minutes is plenty good and it will be just as effective as what your husband does without all of the negative results.

[Veronica]

Oh my thats the last thing I want to do to him well noted thank you. So what so you recommend doing when he screams his head off lol my husband and I live in a room with a little living room and bathroom, so when rex decides to screach alot for a long while lol we cant really leave. We ignore him and he does not stop we put him in the living room by himself and he does not stop lol he only stopped when we put the blanket over him so what do you suggest?

[Wolf]

Ah yes, screaming. Welcome to the world of parrots, ha ha. Three things that all perspective parrot owners should be told about when looking to get their first bird are parrots that parrots are intelligent, parrots are loud and parrots bite, did I mention that parrots are loud? They are prone to screaming. They scream for many reasons and you have to allow for some screaming. Almost all parrots simply must scream in the morning and again in the late afternoon or early evening so allow them about 20 minutes at these two times to scream as long and as loud as they want. In fact, most of the time I will join in with them at these times. Let them get it out of their systems, if this is the only times that they scream then you really don't have a screaming problem as this is normal parrot behavior.
While it is normal for parrots to scream at these two times and this should be accepted they also scream for many other reasons. If their chosen human is spending too much time with someone else, human or other the bird may scream because it is jealous of this time. If the bird doesn't see you it may scream to find out where you are, if the bird thinks it is not getting enough attention it may scream, sometime your bird is just screaming to talk to you. They live in a flock setting with other parrots that are just as loud as they are so their communications tend to be loud. Have you ever tried to talk to a friend in a crowded room where everyone else is also talking? They scream when they perceive any danger real or imagined, they also scream to get what they want from you and because they are so intelligent they may actually use their screaming to train you. As I said parrots are loud
Don't lose heart and think that there is nothing that you can do about the screaming, because nothing could be further from the truth. While you do have to allow for some screaming such as in the morning and evening, there are thing that you can do to modify the rest of the screaming, but it depends on why the bird is screaming as to what you should do about it.
Right at first, with a new bird, regardless of age of the bird, I give the benefit of the doubt to the bird, especially if it is a lone bird. Why? Simply because a lone bird is a frightened bird and if it is also new to my home it is frightened of the strange environment and of me. Also a lone bird that is frightened knows that it is putting its life on the line in these circumstances by screaming, so when this bird screams, it heeds something and I will always answer and then go see what the bird needs. This is for a new bird that I have had for three months or less. This time can vary some as it depends on my learning my bird and its habits as well as its screams. Just as we can learn the different bark that a dog uses to communicate with us the screams of the bird are not the same and once we know our bird then we can often tell what the bird is wanting when it screams just from the sound of the screams.
How best to respond to the screaming bird is best judged by the reason the bird is screaming. Also people do a lot of the wrong thing such as ignoring the bird when it screams and while this does have its time and place it is mostly used much too often and then it often teaches the bird the wrong thing that can damage the relationship. Mostly I will answer my bird if it screams when I am out of sight as the bird mostly just wants to know that I am still there and it is not alone, then mostly when the bird has quietened down in response to my answering it, I will go see what is going on with the bird. If the bird mostly screams to find out where I am ( that is contact calling ) I will start working on teaching the bird a quieter way of calling for me such as whistling, talking, ringing a bell or something else that is not as loud or nerve wracking. For all other screaming it depends on why the bird is screaming, but I never cover my birds in response to poor behavior it is not conducive to having a good relationship with the bird.
Tell me more about the screaming and what is going on just before, during and after the screaming as well as the time of day and I will try to give you more specific suggestions to help you with this.

[Pajarita]

It seems to me that he is beginning to go through puberty (he is about 1.5 years old, right?). Amazons don't really become completely sexually mature until they are about three or four but that doesn't mean they cannot start going through puberty before that age and that they cannot become overly hormonal if kept to a human light schedule, fed high protein and touched inappropriately. I know of a macaw that bred before he was two years old and that is unheard of in the wild but it does happen in captivity due to the soy in the handfeeding formula, the high protein diets and the human light schedule.

The advice on how to avoid getting bit is good but, if I were you and most especially with a male, I would make double sure to reduce his protein intake significantly (and asap), keep him at a super strict solar schedule with a good quality full spectrum light (CRI 94+ and Ktemp 5000 - you can go up to 5500 but 5000 will reduce his sexual hormone production faster) for no more than 4 hours in the middle of the day, fly him every day for about an hour or so (you can do two half an hour sessions, one after breakfast and one before dinner) and that you don't touch his body anywhere but on his head.

Male amazons can be highly aggressive so I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that this behavior is nipped in the bud... you don't want him to learn to bite you but you also don't want to put him in a cage all the time, it would just make things worse.

[Veronica]

Wolf: well ok sometimes my husband and I will be at home cleaning so ill put rex on his perch and as we go on about our cleaning rex will start to get rowdy and loud eventually itll be full on screaming. Or when I go to take a shower ill take him with me and put him on top of the shower door til I get out of the shower and I can get him down. There are times when he decides he would rather stay up there and scream tha. Come down and spend time with me lol

[Wolf]

Not enough detail with either of these. Let us begin with your example of cleaning with Rex on the perch. Does the cleaning involve vacuuming or other noisey activities such as talking to each other from different rooms or over other noises such as TV or radio? Loud noises are often viewed by a parrot as an open invitation to scream and squawk and generally get loud in response to the noise. It is sometimes almost as if they are saying " Oh thank you for being loud and talking loudly to me as I miss talking loudly to a flock. I love to talk loudly, can we please do this more?"
If this sounds like what is happening then you may just have to accept it or find a way to reduce the noise that you are making.
I don't know who is Rex's favorite person is, but during the cleaning projects is this person out of the room or out of Rex's line of sight? Do you speak to each other louder than normal while cleaning or speak to each other from different rooms during the cleaning time?
If this may be occurring then you are possibly dealing with contact calling and you could start responding to his calling by whistling and try to teach him to whistle for you instead of screaming for you. You could mount a bell on his perch and carry a small bell with you and teach him to ring the bell to get your attention instead of screaming for you. It is doubtful that you will get him to be totally quiet if this is happening but you can teach him to do something that is not as loud and therefor more acceptable to you than their normal loud contact calls.
With what you describe about the shower, I would most likely teach him to whistle, maybe even to whistle a little tune. Showers are funny as sometimes they want to join you in the shower and catch a shower themselves and even if they don't want a shower themselves they very often enjoy the steam from our taking a shower as it often moisturizes their feathers and skin and feels oh so good.
Amazons are a tropical rain forest bird and need a much higher humidity than we do or than what we can sustain in our houses due to the possibility of mold, so they love the humidity produced by the shower and are so happy and that may very well lead to a round of joyous squawking and while not in sight there is the possibility of the normal contact calls, so whistling a tune or just a short two or three note contact whistle would help a lot.
Many Amazons are rather prolific and good talkers so where I put whistle you could easily teach the bird to speak, for instance, instead of screaming you could teach Rex to say " Hello, where are you? What are you doing? " Or any number of things.
Kiki Senegal is just starting to learn to speak, but instead of screaming she mostly whistles for me, although her screams are really not that loud. Kookooloo CAG can talk, although if there is anyone in the room other than me, she will not speak, so she whistles or clicks and beeps for me. Mimi Amazon is by far the loudest bird that I have and her screams can wake the dead or peel the paint from the walls, She still screams part of the time but she usually mixes it up with talking and the infrequent whistle, but mostly she talks.
When we are cleaning or doing other things in the house we usually turn on some music, not just for us, but for the birds as well. TV is ok, but does very little to help with contact calling and with 4 little birds and 3 larger birds the contact calling gets out of hand rather quickly as the neighbors down the road can hear them. The music helps a lot, they all love to listen to the music and they all try to sing along with the music and their attempts to sing with the music are substantially quieter than their contact calls.

[Pajarita]

I have four amazons and they hardly ever scream. Two of the females talk loud (and one of them sings real loud ) but it's rare that they actually scream. I would have to pay more attention to see if I can pinpoint the reason why they scream when they do it but, off the top of my head, I would say it's when they get separated from one another (and that's why it hardly ever happens). Their "I am mad" noise is a clicking they do in their throats. The only one that actually screamed was the male BFA but he only did it early in the am and late in the pm and only for a few seconds.

[Veronica]

Pajarita: sorry for the late reply finals time... But yeah stopped feeding him so much seeds I only give them to him at night and during the day he has veggies and fruit and he loves it lol I actually dont know for sure if he is a male I havent done the DNA test because I dont like how scared he gets when I take him for a ride in the car. I have to ask tho how do you fly him? I mean rex can fly he knows very well he can but I dont have him trained in any way whatsoever to fly on cue or anything he only flys when he wants to go from the bed to the cage or when he is on his perch and wants to come to me or if he gets scared he'll just fly away wherever he can. Hes barely started getting the hang of it actually hes learning to control his turns and where my hand is up so he can land on me but hes not a pro yet. As a matter of fact I was just pondering if clipping the wings was bad or good. Ive heard that they will be closer to you and therefore less aggressive if they have there wings clipped also it keeps them safe from flying into windows and/or outside of the house if something is left open. But I can just imagine the heartbreak he would go through if he could no longer fly one day it breaks my heart even thinking about it. Seeing him learning to manuver himself in the air is like seeing a baby take his first steps on his own to me so Im currently considering buying him a harness so I could take him outside and not have to worry about him flying away. Any advice in that? I am currently working on the light setting as we lol I will ask questions about that once I as soon as I feel ready.

[Veronica]

Wolf: as a matter of fact yes whenever my husband starts cleaning with me or without me he always turns on the tv or the radio so that may be a very good explanation we do use a rather loud vacuum numerous times through out the week and sometimes I yalk loudly to my husband or my critters in the other rooms so I love that you explained that in detail also my shower is loud and he loves to sing when I take showers and I usually yake liberty to join him haha I love being loud and joining him in his rants and making all kinds of party noises like wooooo and whatever other randomness comes to mind but I was told that this would provoke a problem screamer because he thinks that I think its ok so I tried to stop. But if its ok and not bad for him or a bad thing in general then thats cool with me. I tend to be way more lenient with him but the only problem I have is that when he gets overly excited he becomes aggressive and then the fun turns into well no more fun and if im not careful a really good bite. I try not to over excite him but sometimes he does it on his own so maybe im mistaking over excitement for something else?

[Veronica]

Oh before I forget what kind of music is good for birds apecifically? Becuase my husband and I listen to rock most of the time what do you think would sound like "music to a birds ears?"
Also is it ok to give parrots a shower during the winter? If its cold I will try to dry him with my hair dryer a bit til he is no longer soaking but if I cannot dry him I wont shower him because Im scared he might get sick from the cold weather.