new member & parrot mama

[shelly]

Hello everyone...
My name is Shelly & I am the proud mommy of 4 hookbills. Tommy is my 16 yr old Miligold Macaw, Mack is my 15 yr old sun conure, Daisy is my 10 yr old double yellow headed amazon and Cujo is my 8 yr old yellow nape. My husband & I call them all "the kids".
I have a question..my yellow nape Cujo is an adopted bird. He has obviously been abused. He is petrified of shoes, brooms, flyswatters, any type of long object (wooden spoons, rulers, sticks etc). He is stick trained and loves to interact with me and my husband..however I cannot get close to him. or he will attack. And by attack I mean, jump off the cage, bite and flog and scream .But, He loves for me to stand a few feet away and talk and play. He goes crazy whenever I have been gone and return home.So glad to see me! but, He also has a horrible, learned, car alarm type noise/scream that he will do for hours. any sugestions? I want to be able to interact physically with him as I do my other birds. He is a clown and has a great personality, and is wicked smart. But I am now super leery of letting him anywhere near me due to being bitten viciously numerous times.

[Wolf]

You have a difficult situation on your hands with Cujo. Male Amazons have a tendency to become very aggressive during breeding season, and are known to attack and keep on attacking. This is breeding season so I don't think there is a lot you can do right now to reduce the aggression but, you can try to reduce the amount of protein in his diet, and learn his body language so that you can avoid the biting. Also place him on an all natural light schedule. These are things that you will need to observe with him all year long, because if you wait until the start of breeding season the effect will be minimized. Also when breeding season is over and you can safely do so get him to learn recall flying as well as target training so that you can use exercise as an additional means of controlling the hormonal aggression.

[Harpmaker]

Also, try interacting with your other birds where Cujo can see.

As far as long objects bothering him, try desensitizing. Start outside the cage far enough away that they don't bother him, move them a little closer to make him uncomfortable, but not so much he moves off, and reward him for not moving by backing away. Repeat until you get inside the cage, but don't try to do it all in one session--or even one day. Seeing the other birds playing with the objects might help him as well.

Good luck!

[Pajarita]

I agree with both Wolf and Harpmaker. It IS breeding season and all bad behaviors turn worse during it but keeping him to a strict solar schedule (make sure you expose him to dawn and dusk without artificial lights on) will help with the hormones as he won't produce them during the resting season (winter). Desensitizing is the way to go. Put one hated object at a distance where he begins to get antsy (watch his body, he will pin his eyes, fan his tail and erect his neck and top of his head feathers and lower his upper body a bit) and just leave it there (on a table, a chair or wherever but not dangling or hanging so it would move). Wait a few days and move it just the tiniest bit closer to him and gradually bring it closer and closer until you can lay it next to his cage and he does not react. Once this happens, start with another object.

Now, you say that he loves to interact with you and your husband but that you cannot get close to him. What exactly do you mean by interaction? Just verbally or is there any physical interaction at all? Does he react the same way to your husband? Who cleans is cage? What kind of leg band does he have? Round and open or flat and closed?

I can tell you how to get him to accept your presence without provoking an attack but I need the answers first to make sure I am pointing you in the right direction.