Hello from Albuquerque

[bkeetie]

I just joined this forum. I have a young female blue-fronted Amazon named Jelly Bean (Bean for short). She is my second blue-front. I had my first parrot, Carla, for 25 years. Carla passed away in 2011 and I still miss her very much.

Bean is a lovely bird in most ways, but she screams for me when I am in another room. I guess she has separation anxiety. She also screams when she wants food. It is a loud and obnoxious scream. Can anyone help me with this? How can I teach her to talk or whistle on these occasions, instead of screech? I want to love this new parrot as much as I loved Carla, but she is making it difficult with this screeching!

[Wolf]

Hi ;
The first thing that would help is more information concerning JB. It would really help us to know how old she is, what her diet is and what times she is fed what foods, what time she gets up and goes to bed as well as what lighting types she is exposed to ( solar, full spectrum, etc. ), how much out of cage time she has each day as well as how much one on one time she gets. All of these things impact behavior to a great degree, which is why I am asking for this information.
The first thing is to figure out why your bird is screaming as there is always a good reason for it, even if we don't see it at first. Once we know why she screams and fix that the screaming will stop by itself. In the meantime you can choose a sound, word(s), or whistle that you would accept and teach her to use that instead of screaming.
The way that works best for me if the bird screams for me from another room is to answer her scream with the new sound. I also use it to let her know where I am when she can't see me, but I do it first. In this manner you are establishing a new flock call, which is what it sounds like is happening with your bird. Parrots are highly social birds, never being alone naturally, they call to their mates while flying or in any circumstance that they don't know where their mate is or if they get separated from the flock. That is why it is called a flock call. But there are also many other reasons that JB may be calling you as well.

[Pajarita]

Wolf is correct, much more info is needed to determine the reason why she screams but, off the top of my head and without any reference, I would say that she does it because she is a baby and she is hungry.

[bkeetie]

Thanks to those who answered my post. Bean was hatched in an aviary in May 2011, so, you are correct, she is still a baby. I keep a bowl of parrot seed, Nutri-berries, sugar snap pea pods, apple pieces, and grapes in her cage at all times, and I also feed her from a plate, on top of the cage, first thing in the morning when I have my breakfast. I feed her again in the evening when I have my dinner. At these times she gets cooked vegetables, rice, fresh fruits, pasta, bits of meat, egg, chicken bones, bread, crackers, peanut butter --- basically, whatever I'm eating, plus some extra fruit and veggies because I know that's what parrots naturally eat. I give her peanuts and almonds in the shell for treats; also an occasional shortbread cookie (she loves those).

At breakfast time and dinner time, when I'm fixing her plate, she sits on the door of her cage and screeches at me. I wish she would just say, "Hello?" like Carla used to do when she was hungry!

When I leave the room, and go anywhere Bean can't see me (such as the bathroom, the laundry room, etc.) she screeches loudly until I return. I try to ignore it, and return only after she has quieted down, but this is not always possible, so I worry that I am unintentionally reinforcing the behavior.

She is allowed out of the cage, with cage door open, whenever I'm home. She has a free-standing perch in my study next to my computer, so she can be with me when I'm working.

Any further advice would be greatly appreciated.

[bkeetie]

Some more information: I put Bean to bed, with a thick black blanket over her cage for total darkness, every evening just after sundown. I get her up about dawn, when I get up to fix my breakfast. Some days she likes to take an afternoon nap, and I drape a towel over the corner of her cage for privacy. Her cage is in a sunny alcove surrounded by windows, so she gets a lot of sun filtered through glass; I also take her outside in the sun for a while every few days.

[Wolf]

For starters you are really overdoing the high protein foods, this is actually a common mistake, but you have taken it to an extreme. Look at the list of protein foods that you have just given us: Free feed of parrot seed and nutriberries, dinner is meat, eggs, chicken bones, and peanut butter with nuts for treats. These are just the high protein foods although many of them are also high in fats as well. These foods in this type of abundance will lead to behavioral issues as well as fatty liver disease, just the free feeding of the seed mix or nutriberries alone will do this to a parrot as they require a low fat and low protein diet.
Taking her out for unfiltered sunshine is a great idea as the glass in your window filters out the very UV light that she needs to keep her system running correctly, and it also helps her to make the vitamin D-3 that she needs for calcium absorption. You are doing great with her sleep schedule, although I would make sure that the covering that you use when she naps during the day doesn't block out the sunlight during the day.
Time out of the cage appears to be ok, but since I don't know how many hours per day that is I can't say for certain and I don't know about any one on one time as you gave no information on that. But to make it easier for you to figure out your bird needs about 4 hours each day out of cage time with at least one hour spent as one on one time with you. One on one time is time that she is in physical contact with you and should not be confused with time spent just hanging out with you as that is just free time out of the cage and as I already said should be about 4 hours per day.
I am thinking that the majority of the screaming that you speak of is flock calls and I have already suggested how to deal with this, but it needs to be accompanied by JB receiving adequate time both one on one as well as free time to exercise and hang out with you too.

[bkeetie]

Thanks, Wolf. I will cut down on the high-protein, high-fat foods. She usually doesn't eat much of those foods --- just takes a taste and then drops them --- but she does seem to enjoy nibbling. Carla was the same way. However, I will try to do better, diet-wise, with this parrot.

I often worry that Carla died prematurely because of what I fed her. When she died, she was very, very skinny but an x-ray showed a swollen liver. She kept losing her balance and falling off her perch. She ate and ate but kept getting thinner and thinner. The vet did not know what was wrong with her. Do those symptoms mean anything to you? Could it have been fatty liver disease? I thought that when a parrot had fatty liver disease, the parrot got obese. Carla was never obese, and during her fatal illness, she was thin, not fat.. I loved her dearly and I still miss her so much...

I have Bean with me on the couch for "snuggle time" in the evenings when I watch the news and movies on TV. She likes to sit on my knee, and she likes to snuggle up under my chin, chew on my buttons and zippers, and so forth. I also carry her around the house on my shoulder during the day when I am home. Almost every time I pass the cage, I put out my finger, she steps up, and I give her a kiss on the beak. I scratch her head a lot, and she let me scratch her pin feathers when she moulted last summer. So, I think we have a lot of "one on one" time. I hope I am doing most things right...

Thank you so much for your advice.

[Wolf]

Due to my still being a youngster as far as parrot keeping, I will have to double check my avian medical texts concerning the symptoms of fatty liver disease, but I don't think that obesity is always involved. I think that if the disease is caused by high fat content of the food that obesity may indeed be an indicator, but with too much protein not always. With too much protein the excess protein is simply stored in the liver as fatty nodules. That is my present understanding of this, but as I said I will have to double check on this.
A lot of balance issues in parrots seem to be linked to a deficiency in calcium, which I believe also affects the liver, but again I will have to double check.

[bkeetie]

Thank you, Wolf. Whatever happened to Carla, it happened suddenly. I had her for almost 25 years, and she was always super-healthy. Then, in 2011, she started falling off her perch more and more often, and then she started losing weight rapidly. I took her to a local vet who advertises herself as an avian specialist. She took blood and x-rays. Carla's white blood cell count was elevated, and her liver was enlarged, but the vet seemed clueless as to what was going on or what to do about it. The vet's main suggestion was to remove the perches from Carla's cage. The vet also said she could keep Carla at the animal hospital and put her on intravenous antibiotics, which "might help, but it was not likely." I could not bear to leave Carla alone in that place, where she would probably just die miserable without me, nor did I want to take her home and watch her die huddled miserably on the floor of her cage. So, I asked the vet to euthanize her. It was the hardest, saddest thing I have ever had to do. I hope her illness was not due to the diet I fed her. My heart is broken enough, without feeling it was my fault.

If I fed Carla too much protein, I want to avoid doing that with Bean. Thank you for warning me.

[Pajarita]

Fatty liver in its early stages might (not necessarily) mean obesity but, in its final stages means a bird that is terribly skinny because the body can no longer utilize properly the food it's ingesting (if the filter is clogged, nothing goes through) and cannot get rid of the toxins (again, the clogged filter) so, literally, the death is caused by both poisoning (the reason why she couldn't keep her balance, her neurological system was shot by the toxins) and starvation. One of the signs of birds with severe liver malfunction that the end will be forthcoming is an insatiable hunger combined with lethargy; the bird swoops down on its food and eats and eats like there is no tomorrow and, immediately after, goes to sleep (a bird that goes to sleep immediately after breakfast is not a 'well' bird) but, when you check him out, you see that the bird is not only not gaining weight, it's actually losing it (which makes no sense if the bird is not moving and eating and eating, right?). Yes, Carla died of hepatic lipidosis (the enlarged liver and her low weight are a dead giveaway, if the vet had done a necropsy, he would have found a liver that is not only enlarged (the body tries to compensate for the decreased function by enlarging the organ) but also discolored and falling apart and, when opened up, riddled with fatty nodules), no doubt about it. And, I don't mean to be harsh or scare the bejesus out of you but Jelly Bean will too if you continue feeding her animal protein (herbivores cannot digest it properly, they lack the necessary enzymes because nature never meant for them to consume it) and free-feeding vegetarian sources of high protein. With a possible couple exceptions, no parrot species was created by nature to consume animal protein. Period. (Have you ever seen a NatGeo documentary of parrots hunting other animals?). And amazons are more prone to fatty liver than other species because their natural diet doesn't contain that much protein. Human food is simply not good for them because, plainly said, supermarket food is crap... too many simple carbs, too processed, too refined, too much salt, too much sugar, too much fat, too many preservatives, everything GMO, etc. You need to put her on gloop or a similar dish with organic raw produce for breakfast and all day picking plus a small, measured portion of a good quality lower protein seed mix (a safflower-based cockatiel one, for example) for dinner. You can continue using roasted, human grade tree nuts as treats but not a lot on a daily basis (like two almonds, hazelnuts or pistachios but one whole walnut, pecan or brazil nut).

Now, getting her up at sunrise is fine but she can't have any artificial lights on until the sun is out and the sky is completely lit (you didn't say if she got up to a full lit room, I am assuming this is the case because this is what humans do) - and covering her cage after it's dark doesn't do it, either. She needs to be exposed to the sunset without any artificial lights and, once she falls asleep with nightfall, then and only then you cover her cage. The trick is for them to be exposed to the change in spectrum during twilight and to wake up and go to sleep gradually and naturally. This is what sets their internal clock.

Now, as to her screams... no, she is not a baby. At almost 3 1/2 years of age, she is a full grown adult and I suspect already too hormonal which might be part of the cause for her screams. Of the eleven I've had under my care, only one single amazon was a screamer and she stopped in a matter of a couple of weeks once she was here (she also plucked her chest and was MEAN MEAN MEAN ). She could also be 'fixated' on you (regard you as her mate) so pay attention to exactly what you do when 'cuddling' in the evening (which, by the way, it's the wrong time of the day for it) because there might be some improper touching (do you caress her back, cup her body with your hand or allow her to burrow into your lap, clothes, sofa pillows?).