Taming my Blue Front Amazon that was used for Breeding

[Trialfire]

Hello my name is Parker, I recently adopted a 7 year old male Blue fronted Amazon that was used in attempt to breed for the last couple months, information on his home prior to breeding was not provided.

I was told that he is untamed and to watch out for biting.
He is not clipped, but the breeder also mentioned that he never left the top of his cage.
The breeder did not want him anymore due to his female amazon not liking him.

I decided to adopt him and attempt to give him a life of love and prosperity!
He came with a clean and healthy vet report, and DNA Male report.
He was never named, so I am deciding to name him Zeus.

My first day home I set him up in his cage, and let him rest for the night.
The next morning I opened the cage, and he came right out to the top of his cage.
He did not lunge, or make any aggressive behaviors, so I attempted to hand feed him. He gently took seeds from my hand with no attempt to bite me at all. Since that worked so well, I let him step up, and he did! He sat on my hand for a bit, as well as my shoulder. I fed him and allowed him to hang out on top of his cage and do whatever he wants. He is very shy and won't let me pet him and he is scared of my hand (Unless I have a treat of course).

Zeus is still very shy and will move to the opposite side of his cage when attempting to get close with him.

Zeus has flown from my shoulder straight to the ground, it looked like he didn't have the ability to keep himself airborne. Also at times it looks like he wants to fly from the cage, he kind of bends down and moves his wings a little bit, he seems very scared when trying to, so he doesn't.

He also has not whistled, or screamed. He only makes a little chirp when I talk to him.

I am currently clicker training him, click treat repeat, to get him used to the clicker, and then I will introduce the stick.

This is now my third day with him, and I have a few questions:

* Him not whistling (not even once), could that mean something is wrong?
* Would I still be able to teach him how to fly eventually?

Also; any information on what I should be doing in attempt to train and tame him would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[Pajarita]

First of all, thank you so much for adopting this parrot and welcome to the forum!

Now, you are rushing things waaaaayyy too much! Let me explain. First of all, your bird is not an ex-breeder. He is, most likely, a pet that did not work out and was sold to the breeder who only kept him for a couple of months (which tells me the breeder doesn't know what he/she is doing either!). Breeding male amazons would fly out and attack you given half a chance - especially since the days are still very long (they are long-day breeders). Second, the reason why he is mild-mannered is not that this is his nature. It's that he is on his second honeymoon period in a few months so he is not only super confused, he is depressed and anxious and trying his very best to blend into the woodwork (that's why he is not vocalizing or even moving much) until he can tell what is what... and that is going to take months. The honeymoon period is the very foundation of your relationship with a parrot and the time for making the bird trust you and, later on, love you (bond). Once the bird feels comfortable and safe in its new home, learns to trust you and starts to love you and is used to the new home routine - then and only then you should star training. You NEVER train a parrot during the honeymoon period. It always works at the beginning but it always end up backfiring. Why? Because parrots do not belong in a hierarchical society and do not understand the concept of obedience, subservience, follow the leader or even working for the food. These traits are genetical and they are not in a parrot genes. They can be trained and they can learn to obey but only after the parrot has bonded with its human. These are highly intelligent and social creatures and can learn myriad commands and willingly execute them but only because they want to and not because we are their bosses. I have never trained any of my parrots but they all obey me, even the wild-caughts, even the parent-raised untamed ones - and I never give them a single food reward for it.

Now, what you need to do during the honeymoon period is learn yourself about him (body language, likes and dislikes, what daily routine works best for you, how to shop for his food, how to serve it, etc) and give him time to learn about you, his new home, his new daily routine, etc. Parrots are not like dogs, they don't like any human just because they were never abused - they take their time to observe, analyze and reach their own conclusions on a case by case basis when it comes to humans so although they could love one person very deeply, it doesn't mean they will love all people. You need to make him feel safe and comfortable in his new home so he learns to trust your first and then love you. Establish a steady, never-changing daily routine, allow him hours and hours of out-of-cage time, make sure his cage is placed in the right spot and that is roomy enough to accomodate his wingspan and then some, get the right kind of perches and toys for him, start him on a fresh food diet and don't free-feed any protein food (they are VERY prone to fatty liver and kidney disease caused by bad diets), spend hours with him in the same room, talk/sing/whistle to him and every now and then, offer him a treat but not as a reward for anything done well (he does NOT appreciate that!), but as a token of friendship from you to him. Think of him as a person - if a giant alien took you to his house and made you work for your food from day one, would you trust or like this alien? No, of course not. You would start looking for a way out and not even think of giving the alien a chance, right?

You, most likely, will think that I am exaggerating but I am not. All my birds are rehomes and, with the exception of one that came to me out of Animal Control with advanced liver disease, all my amazons were given up because of aggression and they are all doing great now -even the wild-caughts obey me without a problem. Please be careful and take it real slow because BFAs are one of the hot three and males can be VERY aggressive when they feel misunderstood or unhappy.

[Trialfire]

Hello. Thank you very much for your reply. I definitely am going to fast and will surely take your advice and slow it down.

About the flight, do you think over time he will gain control for Recall and other flying stuff? I want the very best for him and plan on building an outdoor aviary for him to spread his wings and enjoy the sunlight for some vitamin D.

[Pajarita]

His ability or inability to fly depends on whether he was allowed to fledge correcly when a baby and had time to practice flight enough so his muscles developed accordingly and the necessary neural paths for it were created within the time window for it. Birds that were clipped when babies and kept either clipped or in a cage are handicapped - both physically and mentally. Now, whether some of the flight ability is recovered or not depends on the species. Little ones like budgies, cockatiels, lovebirds, plets, etc almost always get it back - maybe not as good as a bird that was allowed to fledge and to fly all the time but they do pretty well - these are very flighty species which often fly just for the fun of it. Medium species (like conures, senegals, etc) get some of it back but they never quite master the skill (their maneuvers and landings are clumsy). And large species simply don't - even when their wings look perfectly normal and they have all their flight feathers.

But the fact that he hasn't yet flown does not mean that he is not able to. Amazons are called 'perch potatoes' because, as far as they are concerned, if they have food and water available, that's good enough for them. I have two amazons that fly and two that don't but even the ones that fly would walk and climb half the time instead of flying - it's the way they are.