An old bird

[liz]

Wanting to help this bird is your priority. Most of the bites I get are not painful, they were just scarey because they happened so fast. I got one that dented my finger but did not draw blood.

It boils down to would you give a drop of blood to help her. Because she is following you and trying to bond, I don't think she would bite you. Just remember not to scream and jerk your finger back. That causes more pain for you and scares the daylights out of the bird.

I use "owe" but most others use "ouch" to let the bird know it hurts.

[Pajarita]

I don't blame you for been scared. I am scared of mine, too. And I've gotten real bad bites from them. The last one was a couple of holes in my head when the male flew out to attack me. Male amazons are big, strong, scary birds so don't feel bad about been scared because only a fool would not be.

Now, the trick is to learn their body language so the first thing you need to do is observe him carefully. Look at his eyes, is he pinning them? Look at his tail, is it fanned out? Look at the feathers around his neck and on top of his head, are they standing up of flat? Does he look tense or relaxed?

The other trick is to make sure they are not overly hormonal or even just plain hormonal. Unfortunately, you have not had him so long to know he is not for a fact because you don't know what kind of schedule he was under before coming to your house.

Now, amazons react very favorably to sweet talk. Do you know what phrase was used in his previous home for praise? If you do, use it and, if you don't, use a generic Good Boy and Pretty Bird. Are you using the same name he had before? Because that is VERY important in making them feel comfortable and to get them to like us. Parrots understand and use the concept of names to identify themselves so using the name he know it's his goes a long way toward showing them we want to be their friends. Let's say his name is Charlie, you would say something like: "Hi, Charlie! Awwww, aren't you a pretty bird! Yes, you are! You are such a good boy! Charlie is a good boy!" You know, inane stuff like that but always said in a soft and sweet voice and in a bit of a singsong. Do this for a long time and watch his body language to see what he looks like when he is relaxed and in a good mood and remember the look so you only ask him to step up when he is looking like that (but, again, it's important to make sure he is not hormonal because, when they are, they tend to be quite unpredictable and react in a split second).

In the meantime, use a stick to make him step up and wait until you feel more comfortable with him to use your hand.

And, please, take him to an avian vet asap. You need to know if he is healthy or not. He is a very old bird and he surely has health issues.

[Georges mom]

I have a vet coming to my house in a week. This poor guys claws are so long that he gets stuck on absolutely everything from his toys to the actual cage bars. I know he likes me. He screams mama for me when I leave the room and he always goes and sits in my rocker at night when we are watching tv. He just likes to bite at my feet when I'm walking so I've taken to wearing some boots when he's out and about. He's a stinker!! He sits out on his perch just inches from me at the table and I'm able to feed him and share some healthy foods with him. I'm learning to watch his eyes and tail and he does excite easily. The vet will give him a full exam and I don't know what to expect with his age. I am getting a long dowel for him to step up on and I think he'll be fine with that. George likes to be by me. I don't know if he's a cuddly type bird or not but he does enjoy company. I have no idea what he's been thru for he was a rescue and the person who had him before me said she tried to adopt him out several times but people always gave him back. That broke my heart. He settling in nicely but I do wonder if I'm giving him to much freedom. His cage is open pretty much all day and for the most part he hangs out on top (except for when he strolls around the house) Is there such a thing as to much freedom for a parrot?? I close him in around 7 and he gets covered at 8pm uncovered at 730.

[Wolf]

You asked is there such a thing as too much freedom for a parrot. I would normally answer, without too much thought and say no. But after reading about the time that he gets up in the morning and especially the time that he goes to bed, I would have to qualify that answer. I would have to qualify the answer regardless of if I were to say yes or no, so let me explain my thoughts on this. Parrots are photoperiodic, that is to say that not only is there breeding cycle mostly controlled by the amount and type of light that he receives, but so too are some of his behaviors, especially aggressiveness. These two things aggressiveness and breeding cycle are also heavily influenced by diet, mostly by the amount of protein in the diet and aggressiveness is further influenced by the way that the bird is treated. So how does this come together to include the schedule of waking and sleeping that you gave?

Parrots and I must add that this is even more important if you have a male Amazon, have an internal biological clock that is tasked with measuring not only the length of the day, but also with the length of the light/ dark periods of that day. This internal clock is regulated by the specific light that occurs at dawn and again at dusk, sort of like the start/ stop button on a stopwatch. This clock signals the bird endocrine system that it is time to start producing sexual hormones for the breeding cycle, it also signals when it is time to quit producing these hormones to bring the breeding cycle to an end. But in captive parrots this tends to go horribly wrong due to two primary factors, living on a human light schedule and receiving too much protein in their diet. When this happens the breeding cycle does not come to an end, hormones are produced all year long which makes the bird more aggressive and more likely to attack its human. The sexual organs which grew upwards of 100 times their dormant size continue to grow causing a chronic and increasing level of pain for the bird , The bird eventually starts pulling out its feathers and starts digging holes in its own body in an attempt to stop the pain and eventually gets to the point that it can not tolerate even the slightest touch and attacks anyone or anything that tries to touch it.

So if your bird is roaming free throughout your house and does not go to roost by the time it gets dark, because it wants to spend more time with you and you are using artificial lighting, then yes there is such a thing as too much freedom. Your bird needs to be uncovered before dawn so that it is exposed to that twilight period without interference of artificial lights and then it needs to eat its dinner in the late afternoon and be exposed to the twilight period of dusk, again without interference of artificial lights and go to sleep by full dark, in order to keep the internal clock properly regulated so that the endocrine system can function as it should. The parrot also needs a healthy, low protein diet so that it does not use the excess protein to keep producing hormones.

I hope that this is helpful to you.

[Pajarita]

Yep, Wolf is correct. He NEEDS to be on a strict solar schedule. Male amazons are very aggressive when they are hormonal, they are also quite unpredictable and would react in a split second after displaying so you would not have the time to move away from him. No bird should be kept at a human light schedule, it's simply unkind to the poor animal, but, when we are talking about male amazons, it's absolutely essential.

The diet is another issue, amazons are VERY prone to fatty liver disease and, unfortunately for them, we did not learn how to feed them correctly until very recently so, at his age, he was bound to have had a real bad diet for quite a long time. I am thinking he must be a wild-caught because if he had been captive-bred, he would have been dead already.

Please ask the vet to do a bile acids test as well as the usual CBC and Chem panel.

Now, you mentioned 'cuddly'... I am afraid that he will never be that. But they love company and preening (both done to them by us and them doing it to us) and they very musical (amazons love to sing opera-style - they don't always have a good ear for music but they don't allow that to stop them from enjoying their songs ).

[Wolf]

Boy, do you have that right, on the opera style singing. Mimi loves to do that and for years I had always said that my singing terrified the dead, but I never once suspected that I would ever be able to say that I could ever sing better than someone, let alone a bird!!

[liz]

Rambo does not like cockatiels. First off they fly and scare him. They also sing which he has not really caught on to. To combat the cockatiels he started singing opera. It took me a while since the words sounded different with opera, but he had turned Old McDonald into something he was proud of.

[Pajarita]

Yes, that's another quirk of them, they turn anything into an aria! Mami does it with "la patita" (it literally means 'the little animal hand or leg' -we only use leg or hand for humans, not for animals) and she sings "dame la patita" ('give me your paw' which is the equivalent of 'step up' in Spanish) several different ways. They are super funny that way, Robert and I always end up cracking up at her songs.

[Georges mom]

Ok I can certainly cover him up earlier at night but his cage is in my family room where there is much activity and even covering him up at 730 he gets mad squalks and even goes down and peaks out at me thru a tiny uncovered opening at the bottom of his cage . He wants to be in on the action all the time. I do close him up after dinner now and he's accepting that now. The vet comes on thurs and yes the exam does include a full lab panel. I hope his diet is ok. He's on a pellet food and I give him fresh fruits and vegetables and occasionally an omega3 seed treat. All my foods arevfrom Foster and smith. I'm teaching him how to dance and he just loves it. Either he's done it in the past or he's just a fast learner. Im starting to think that the reason he goes after everyone's feet is that he's been kicked in the past. He really hates them. That's one behavior that needs to stop and real soon. He knows the word no and will stop when you use it except for the foot attack. Will talk to vet about that too she's suppose to be magnificent with birds. I'll keep you posted and thank you again for all the advice. Georges days will be shorter starting today.

[Wolf]

I don't know if he was kicked out of the way with a foot or not, but feet are a very common issue even with birds that have never been abused by being kicked at. It does seem that many birds go after feet and perhaps the human trying to move to avoid stepping on them is a factor in them learning to go after the feet. Perhaps the bird originally went to the foot and used its beak to help it to step up onto the foot and the person moved the foot. A hard beak on the top of your foot feels really strange and this is partly due to them being fairly sensitive and when we feel something unexpectantly touching the top, we tend to move the foot quickly to avoid being stepped on and this probably is what encourages them to go after the foot as they know that they made us move that foot and they seem to enjoy that. But who knows for sure? I do know that it is better to not move the foot and that the behavior will gradually go away. Parrots do have a sense of humor and I think that making us move our feet is part of that sense of humor being acted on.

In addition to covering him it helps to lower the lights and restrict the noise so that they will go to sleep.