by Pajarita » Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:35 am
Welcome to the forum!
Ouch, what a situation... those poor birds are suffering, my dear, and I thank you for wanting to make things better for them! I hope you are ready for a lot of work and changes in your life because the changes will need to be implemented every day so, if you only go there every other week, unless you can train your father to do all the necessary stuff when you are not there, nothing is going to work.
In any case, here goes my two cents: First thing you need to do is take the macaw and the amazon to an avian vet and have them checked with full blood work. This needs to include bile acids test for both because the long, curling claws of the macaw is a typical symptom of fatty liver disease and amazons are extremely prone to it so you need to know if these birds have it or not. Now, this is going to cost a pretty penny and I don't know what your situation is or if your grandmother would be willing to pay for it or, at least, part of it. Going by what you posted, I doubt she will be willing or able to so I hope you have resources for this because, for what you have told and taking into consideration their age, I am afraid that these birds are in real bad physical shape and will need treatment as well as a drastic change in husbandry.
The first thing is to get them to eat a good, fresh food diet but, again, if they don't get the food every day, they will never get used to eating it because, with parrots, it's a matter of giving them the food every single day at dawn and eating it with them or they will never become familiar enough with it. I am assuming here but it seems to me that these two birds are been fed too much protein so, if this is the case, you need to reduce it immediately.
Then you have to make sure they are kept at a strict solar schedule with full exposure to dawn and dusk and that they have a good quality full spectrum light in the ceiling fixture of the room they are kept for during the day (this will get their endocrine system back in track and will decrease aggression).
You need to trim the claws of the macaw and put sweetfeet perches in her cage instead of what she has now (most likely dowels which are real bad for their feet and toes). You also need to make sure the amazon's claws are not too long so she cannot grab the perch firmly enough. It worries me that she loses her balance because although you think it's because she has only one leg, it's not. Birds (especially parrots which have incredibly strong feet and toes because they use them for climbing) don't fall off a perch or lose their balance just because they have only one leg. It might happen the first day or two after they lose one leg or foot but they learn to compensate very quickly so, if she is losing her balance, we are talking of some sort of medical problem beyond the lack of one leg (it could be liver malfunction as, when it's advanced, ammonia accumulates in the brain impairing neurological functions, especially balance).
You need to put them on a daily (unchanged) routine. This will reduce anxiety, make them trust you (the very foundation of a good relationship between an animal and a human) and enrich their lives (and they need this ASAP!). It will also allow you to let them out. I know that you are afraid of them but if you don't get over the fear, you will never be able to keep them so, in reality, you have no choice about it. Parrots only bite when they are scared, as a way of protecting themselves/their nest/their mates, when they were shown by humans that this is the only way to get their point across or when they are in pain and/or complete despair. You need to eliminate all the reasons why these parrots are biting and, when you do, they won't. In the meantime, you can use a stick to get them to step up so you can move them from point A to point B. If they don't already step up to a stick (most birds do this much more readily than to a hand), you can start target training them from inside the cage so you can teach them to do this -but you need to change their diet for that because they will only do it if you reward them with a high value item and, if they are free-fed (it means filling up a bowl and leaving it there all day long) protein food (pellets, seeds, nuts, avicakes, nutriberries), there will be no treat good enough to make them learn.
Can you tell us what their daily schedule normally is? Like when do they wake up, when are they put to bed, given food, etc - do they have any routines where they interact with people? Toys? Out of cage time? Also, what is their diet? Tell us what they eat, not what they are given, and how often, and the brand of the staple food (this will allow us to figure out what needs changing/tweaking, what needs to be eliminated, etc)