Hello everyone!

[chris.carr11.cc]

Hello everyone my name is Chris and it's been a little while since I've own a parrot. I had a couple in the past (most smaller birds (cockatiel and a GC conure)) but for the last little while I I've been in the Navy so wasn't able to really consider getting one due to the lack of free time I had.

Over the last couple months I have been doing my research into looking to get another bird and luckily about 2 weeks ago I was able to one (white fronted amazon). Was able to get him from someone who never handled or did any training with him (they were intimidated by him). So after them having them for a couple months they decided to get rid of them just because of the bird getting more nervous and scared of people around people.

According to the previous owner he is about 7 months old and a male, but looking at the markings on the face he appears to be older and I don't see any red on it's shoulders like I've seen from all the pictures and articles I've read online. I'm not sure if that is something that will appear more apparent once if ages (assuming the bird is only 7 months). Was hoping someone with more experience with this breed would know more from looking at pictures of him.

Just giving a background of what our last 2 weeks have been like: The first day or two I would just sit by the cage and watch him and do a little talking just to get him less nervous about being in a new house, but the bird was quite reserved and would open it's beak and appear to start trying to lunge from his corner to give off warning whenever I tried to change he water/food bowls out of the cage. After a couple days of letting him settle in I tried to offer the bird food from a larger bowl so it would avoid seeing (and biting) my hands and that didn't go well after about the 4-5 day of him being with me, so I cut his pellets (roudybush) to try and have him work up an appetite. After about 24 hours of about 1/3 of the food he started to have an interest of me providing him fruits/veggies/seeds/pellet mix that I had in my bowl to try and identify his favorite treat (ended up being papaya and banana chips). I started to provide him food from the bowl and clicked with my clicker every time he took a bite. After about a dozen times I would click and then provide the bowl to him and he started understanding what the clicker meant. I then got a dowel and started putting it by him and when he touched it I clicked and provided him with a treat to start target training him. He started understanding what I meant but was still trying to bite and was very nervous of my hands. I did some more digging using Google and the best resource site that there is (Youtube) and came across a technique called the "power pause" where you gradually get to move closer and closer to the bird and I can now get about an inch or so with him being okay for about 6-8 seconds before he gets uncomfortable and starts to try and bite so it's getting quite a bit better after doing that for about a day. He seems to be learning quickly, but we have to work on the trust relationship between us before I make any more giant strides with him.

I'm glad to be part of this forum and looking forward to meeting everyone and learning from your combined knowledge. If anyone has any pointers, advice, or general information regarding this breed please let me know, there appears to be a lot less info then for his larger cousins.

Thank you,

Chris

 

[CDavis]

Welcome to the forums if you really want to have a good relationship with your Amazon you need to learn to take it at his pace and not yours because if you don't you are gonna learn extremely quick that you can't force amazons you do anything touching and playing is on the amazons terms.
Also don't withhold food to interact with the bird your trying to make a lifelong friend not something that must tolerate you so he can survive. Try and sit beside the cage and read the Amazon body language thread out loud to him so he can get to know you.
But this forum is a good resource and it's good to see another Amazon owner doing research

 

[Flboy]

Welcome to you!

 

[Kentuckienne]

Welcome, I'll be interested to hear how things go and what techniques you find most useful.

 

[chris.carr11.cc]

Welcome to the forums if you really want to have a good relationship with your Amazon you need to learn to take it at his pace and not yours because if you don't you are gonna learn extremely quick that you can't force amazons you do anything touching and playing is on the amazons terms.
Also don't withhold food to interact with the bird your trying to make a lifelong friend not something that must tolerate you so he can survive. Try and sit beside the cage and read the Amazon body language thread out loud to him so he can get to know you.
But this forum is a good resource and it's good to see another Amazon owner doing research

Thank you for the information, I'm new to amazons to this is going to be different.

I just felt the need to clarify, I didn't completely withhold food I just brought it back some for his dinner and his breakfast and then worked with him around 2-3pm to get him food in a bowl.

My wife is a dog trainer on the side and I know one of the techniques with them is that if a dog doesn't feel a need to depend on you then they become aggressive (out of trying to be protective). So by just scaling their food back for a day or two it allows them to be curious.

I understand birds and dogs are different, but I used the same concept and it seemed to have worked and after that day with him getting curious of the bowl and me showing him that he can trust that I won't harm him I brought his food back up that night (and every day since then) and he understands that the bowl is full of his treats that he gets for doing acceptable behavior.

I have noticed the mood swings in the amazon that I didn't with my conures back in the day. Tuesday he was really into the training and wanting to learn and would make noises when he wanted to keep doing work. Yesterday was a different story and he more wanted his private time, let me do a little work with him, but for the most part wanted to be left ago, so I gave him more space.

Overall, the experience with the amazon has been really exciting to see what he allows for that day and though some are a little less productive then others with his training I feel that the relationship between us both reading each other's body languages and trusting in each other is getting closer as time goes on.

Thank you for the advice and I will go look through the amazon forums to see if there is any more information available to me.

 

[CDavis]

Welcome to the forums if you really want to have a good relationship with your Amazon you need to learn to take it at his pace and not yours because if you don't you are gonna learn extremely quick that you can't force amazons you do anything touching and playing is on the amazons terms.
Also don't withhold food to interact with the bird your trying to make a lifelong friend not something that must tolerate you so he can survive. Try and sit beside the cage and read the Amazon body language thread out loud to him so he can get to know you.
But this forum is a good resource and it's good to see another Amazon owner doing research

Thank you for the information, I'm new to amazons to this is going to be different.

I just felt the need to clarify, I didn't completely withhold food I just brought it back some for his dinner and his breakfast and then worked with him around 2-3pm to get him food in a bowl.

My wife is a dog trainer on the side and I know one of the techniques with them is that if a dog doesn't feel a need to depend on you then they become aggressive (out of trying to be protective). So by just scaling their food back for a day or two it allows them to be curious.

I understand birds and dogs are different, but I used the same concept and it seemed to have worked and after that day with him getting curious of the bowl and me showing him that he can trust that I won't harm him I brought his food back up that night (and every day since then) and he understands that the bowl is full of his treats that he gets for doing acceptable behavior.

I have noticed the mood swings in the amazon that I didn't with my conures back in the day. Tuesday he was really into the training and wanting to learn and would make noises when he wanted to keep doing work. Yesterday was a different story and he more wanted his private time, let me do a little work with him, but for the most part wanted to be left ago, so I gave him more space.

Overall, the experience with the amazon has been really exciting to see what he allows for that day and though some are a little less productive then others with his training I feel that the relationship between us both reading each other's body languages and trusting in each other is getting closer as time goes on.

Thank you for the advice and I will go look through the amazon forums to see if there is any more information available to me.

It's good to see that their is a good thought process to your training but you'd be surprised at how many people do crazy stuff to their birds and I didn't really know to what extent you where withholding the food. Also yea amazons are completely different than conures and very very fun it's like adding another person to the family

 

[Terry57]

Hello Chris and welcome to the forum! Your new boy is gorgeous!
There is a lot of great info in this link about building trust:
http://www.parrotforums.com/general-parrot-information/49144-tips-bonding-building-trust.html

I'm really glad you joined us and I look forward to hearing more about your baby

 

[Scott]

Welcome Chris, thanks for a thorough and detailed introduction! As you discovered Amazons are unique and enigmatic, but you seem to have an intuitive sense that varied methods are needed.

Moodiness is a hallmark of Amazons, and they can be virtually unapproachable at times. Giving him space during a "tantrum" will prevent negative training and mutual frustration. Reading his body language will prove invaluable, take a look at this thread: http://www.parrotforums.com/amazons/54250-amazon-body-language.html

I don't know enough about White Fronted Amazons to help with his coloration. He is beautiful, what is his name?

 

[Kentuckienne]

I just felt the need to clarify, I didn't completely withhold food I just brought it back some for his dinner and his breakfast and then worked with him around 2-3pm to get him food in a bowl.

One trick I read on this site is to figure out what the bird likes the best. Offer several treat items on a plate and see what he goes for. Then you can make that item the "treat" and don't give it with his regular food. He can only get the treat food from you directly. Then he has motivation to interact with you and to figure out how to trick you into giving him the treat by something as simple as getting up on your arm.

 

[chris.carr11.cc]

Welcome Chris, thanks for a thorough and detailed introduction! As you discovered Amazons are unique and enigmatic, but you seem to have an intuitive sense that varied methods are needed.

Moodiness is a hallmark of Amazons, and they can be virtually unapproachable at times. Giving him space during a "tantrum" will prevent negative training and mutual frustration. Reading his body language will prove invaluable, take a look at this thread: http://www.parrotforums.com/amazons/54250-amazon-body-language.html

I don't know enough about White Fronted Amazons to help with his coloration. He is beautiful, what is his name?

Appreciate the resources.

I'm haven't given him a set name yet still playing with a couple of ideas. Right now I really like the name Java. I'm a systems admin for a company here in San Diego and working on finish up my BS in Computer science and learning to program in Java. I feel it will mark a time in my life that will remind me when I got him. Also, I think it will be kinda funny if people ask me what I did last night/over the weekend/etc and I can say I worked with "Java" without telling them that it could either be coding or training with my parrot. Kinda an inside joke with myself I guess.

White fronted are supposed to be able to be sexed by their coloration and I'm not seeing the colors showing that it's a boy yet. I'm not sure if that something that will become more apparently as he grows, and could be a sign of sexual maturity or something like that, but not sure. But I don't know if I want to name him something and find out that He is actually a she and she learns that her name is something masculine kinda thing.

 

[chris.carr11.cc]

I just felt the need to clarify, I didn't completely withhold food I just brought it back some for his dinner and his breakfast and then worked with him around 2-3pm to get him food in a bowl.

One trick I read on this site is to figure out what the bird likes the best. Offer several treat items on a plate and see what he goes for. Then you can make that item the "treat" and don't give it with his regular food. He can only get the treat food from you directly. Then he has motivation to interact with you and to figure out how to trick you into giving him the treat by something as simple as getting up on your arm.

Thank you for the advice. That's actually exactly what I did and I found out his favorite it papaya and he only gets it when we are training and he gets his fresh fruits/veggies in a bowl and his pellets in another, but now because I did that whenever I try doing target training or desensitizing him to touch he gets more excited knowing he's going to get his papaya.

 

[Scott]

Appreciate the resources.

I'm haven't given him a set name yet still playing with a couple of ideas. Right now I really like the name Java. I'm a systems admin for a company here in San Diego and working on finish up my BS in Computer science and learning to program in Java. I feel it will mark a time in my life that will remind me when I got him. Also, I think it will be kinda funny if people ask me what I did last night/over the weekend/etc and I can say I worked with "Java" without telling them that it could either be coding or training with my parrot. Kinda an inside joke with myself I guess.

White fronted are supposed to be able to be sexed by their coloration and I'm not seeing the colors showing that it's a boy yet. I'm not sure if that something that will become more apparently as he grows, and could be a sign of sexual maturity or something like that, but not sure. But I don't know if I want to name him something and find out that He is actually a she and she learns that her name is something masculine kinda thing.

Welcome to a fellow citizen of America's Finest City!!

Java would definitely be a serendipitous name, very nice!

Has he seen an avian vet for a baseline check since you acquired him? A DNA test from a blood-feather can establish sex if desired. Fortunately we have several excellent avian vets in San Diego, PM me if you desire!

 

[chris.carr11.cc]

Appreciate the resources.

I'm haven't given him a set name yet still playing with a couple of ideas. Right now I really like the name Java. I'm a systems admin for a company here in San Diego and working on finish up my BS in Computer science and learning to program in Java. I feel it will mark a time in my life that will remind me when I got him. Also, I think it will be kinda funny if people ask me what I did last night/over the weekend/etc and I can say I worked with "Java" without telling them that it could either be coding or training with my parrot. Kinda an inside joke with myself I guess.

White fronted are supposed to be able to be sexed by their coloration and I'm not seeing the colors showing that it's a boy yet. I'm not sure if that something that will become more apparently as he grows, and could be a sign of sexual maturity or something like that, but not sure. But I don't know if I want to name him something and find out that He is actually a she and she learns that her name is something masculine kinda thing.

Welcome to a fellow citizen of America's Finest City!!

Java would definitely be a serendipitous name, very nice!

Has he seen an avian vet for a baseline check since you acquired him? A DNA test from a blood-feather can establish sex if desired. Fortunately we have several excellent avian vets in San Diego, PM me if you desire!

I have not taken him to the vet yet. He's really nervous around people still and don't want to do anything to break the trust that I've recently acquired from him. Since he appears healthy (looking at his droppings and he eats fine) I'm trying to work with him a bit more over the next 2 weeks or so to give him used to people and being touched before taking him to the vets. Primarily because I don't him want to bite the vet and back stepping too much with the recent work I've done with the bird.

I appreciate the guidance and will PM you soon to get who you recommend as far as a vet goes.

Thanks!