Introducing Stephen Squawking!

[OutlawedSpirit]

He is absolutely gorgeous. I love baby amazons.

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[BeatriceC]

This is my breakfast. Get your own.

I've added a little formula to his food. For now I'm just coating his food in it, to add extra calories. He's lost a tiny amount of weight (just 10g). He's been very active, working hard learning to fly and perch, so even though he's eating constantly, he's just not able to get in enough calories with just food. So we'll just fortify his food a little bit. If that doesn't work I'll add syringe feeds back in. He's still very little so that should be okay.

 

[BeatriceC]

I do have a question that I didn't think to ask my vet. Showering/bathing. He's a mess and needs a bath. Is there anything special I need to account for given his age? Or should I just approach it with the typical "this is a baby" type caution and go slow and gentle.

 

[OutlawedSpirit]

When I've raised Amazon's, as long as they're fully feathered and at least fledging for a little while, then I've just approached bathing like any other new bird. Just take it slow and figure out what he likes and make sure he doesn't chill while he's drying.

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[SailBoat]

And, my only addition would be to mist into the air above him letting it fall gently down on him.
With an older Amazon, we have always made a heavy glass pie plate available with water as a wading pool. The only down side is your Amazon may just splash too high-heaven.

 

[BeatriceC]

Splashing to high heaven wouldn't be a bad thing. And misting above him was the plan with "slow and gentle".

I think I'm going to put a pan in his bin after his nap. He's a disaster so I've been cleaning out his bin frequently, so I can time it to right before a cleaning. He just had a half hour of exploring so he's sleepy now, so I can wait a bit.

 

[BeatriceC]

He willingly got on my hand last night! This morning he wasn’t as thrilled with the idea but didn’t protest too much when I had to take him out to clean out his bin and weigh him. This is progress. Betty, my red lored wants to mother him, so she’s constantly going to his bin to hang out (supervised). I think watching me handle the big birds is helping a lot for him to figure out human hands are ok. My vet said since everybody has had infectious disease testing and they’re all negative it’s not a problem to have them in the same room intermittently.

Also, on the topic of why he’s not tame even though he was raised in a vet’s office. In addition to what I said before, I’ve been reminded me that the original goal was to get him rehabbed and released into one of the wild flocks. It wasn’t until last week that they decided that wasn’t going to be possible with him. So for several weeks they were handling him as a wild bird, which means limiting human interaction to just what’s necessary to keep him fed and healthy.

Bea, that really makes a lot of sense, and speaks volumes about your Avian Vet as well, obviously he was trying to do the right thing for the bird, and at the time evidently it wasn't a consideration to home this baby with a human family. So he's still very young, and yes he's going to need more patience and rewards, but I fully believe your quite capable, as Scott said earlier your last sentence spoke volumes about you!! (in throwing yourself into learning all you can) I guess the greatest question from me, is still why he couldn't be re-homed back into the wild. I mean obviously from the untrained eye, he looks so good, and so healthy, and for him not to be able to return to the wild is hard to understand. Although in watching a seminar not long ago, I listened to an Avian biologist describe much to my absent thought, just how tough the wild actually was. In foraging for food, to predators, to so many dangers, things we just don't think about on a daily basis, For these birds to have human companionship is a good thing, but also a bad thing also, as many times they don't get what they actually need, that they readily find in a wild environment. I guess the compromise, is the wild environment, without the dangers..... One last thought......feel free to ignore..... He rally reminds me of a "Pedro"..... Si Señorita!! lol Love the picture Bea......

So I've been replaying that afternoon in my brain, because I haven't had a chance to go into the office. We talked about imprinting and the challenges faced when well meaning humans handle baby birds incorrectly, so I think what was going on is that as much as he tried otherwise, he was just too imprinted on humans for my vet to feel like he'd have a decent shot at survival in the wild. The speed at which he's taming really lends proof to that. He was cuddling with my 18yo last night and is starting to step up on command. That's extremely fast if he was fully wild. Now granted, my 18yo is basically the animal whisperer. He works for a horse ranch/exotic animal sanctuary and they have a foul tempered zebra who hates everybody but him. He doesn't like the kid, but he doesn't hate him and lets him pat his head from time to time, which is a lot more than he allows anybody else. The kid has always been this way with animals, so I'm not surprised he was the first human Stevie allowed to cuddle him.

 

[Anita1250]

When my Sam was a baby, he was always covered in formula. I used to get a warm washcloth and wipe off as much as I could before I started giving him baths. It did help for the chest area where most of the formula was. I did it right after feeding so it wouldn't dry and harden. When he became fully feathered, I gave him a bathing dish, which he loved. Splashing and playing in the water was great fun, although it didn't really get him clean! Finally, I began bathing him with a mister. To this day, 36 years later, he still loves his baths.