by Wolf » Tue Mar 01, 2016 8:45 am
I would not be too concerned with the loss of a feather now and then as it is pretty much a normal occurrence for birds. That does not mean that I would not inspect the feathers that you find for signs of plucking or barbering. That would be unusually frayed feathers or the feather shaft having been chewed. If the feather looks good then I would not be concerned at all.
The issue of odor with Amazons is also a natural thing and some people like it and others don't. I do not understand everything about it but some people say that their Amazons smell like tropical flowers in the rainforest, while other people will thing that the very same bird gives off a pungent odor that they find unpleasant. I don't know why this is but the bird's smell is different for different people. I think that my YNA female smells like flowers and like yours I do not smell it all of the time. But that is all that I have to share about this thing.
Many birds are somewhat possessive about things, it could be a toy or just about anything else that you could imagine. Kiki, Senegal is not normally allowed in the kitchen, but sometimes to take her around the house especially into the sunroom I have to pass through the kitchen/ dining room area and if I am too slow in passing through it she makes a beeline to the coffee maker. Once their she uses body language to inform us that any attempt to remove her from her coffee maker will result in severe bites. Go figure !
I am not sure what to tell you to do about this possessiveness thing. With Kiki, I do not allow her to remain on my coffee maker any longer than it takes me to protect myself from her bites. She will be possessive about other items as well such as shoes and if they are my leather boots, I don't get too awful concerned and just leave her alone. If she goes after tennis shoes or other types with a rubber like sole or edging I make her leave them alone as she tears big chunks out of those and I don't want to run the risk of her ingesting any of this type of material. So with my birds, I kind of figure that unless it might be unsafe for them or if they are regurgitating on it or trying to have sex with it I do not bother them about it. Even then there are really no right or wrong answers. I will place some of these special things that they are showing sexual behaviors with in their cage for them to play with there. I don't often go into my birds cages while they are in them as this is the space that they are most often territorial about as they perceive it as their nesting area and they will often defend it. If I want to interact with them I open their cage so that they can come out when they want. Most often when they have a special toy that they will defend it is a sexual thing and I feel that they are just like all of the rest of us and that since this is a natural drive that they need to have some way of releasing these tensions which is why I usually put those toys in their space and do nothing more other than cleaning these toys a bit more often. And that is also why I can't really give you any more advice than what I have just done. I have worked with animals all of my life and as long as their attempts at sexual release are not causing problems, I try to leave them in peace without trying to control it, I am not one to be embarrassed by this and with birds unless you say something most people would have no idea what the bird is doing any way.
I hope that you and George find this useful.