Willow will she be Mean or nice today?

[Tashia]

Hi y'all! I'm looking for some suggestions on how to help my Amazon, Willow build some trust in me. She has had a rough life, I'll give you the cliff's notes version; raised by a hoarder, taken by the humane society where she rarely if ever was allowed to leave her cage, then adopted by a well meaning but misguided lady who forced interaction on her. I have been letting her come out of the cage on her own when I am home and available to keep an eye on her (atleast 3-4 hours a day I would love for it to be more but her unpredictable behavior limits it as I have a 3 and 4 yr old at home). She comes out eagerly and will take a treat from my hand (started with string beans to keep a safe distance and graduated to green peas) but if you try to get her to step up on your hand she will bite HARD! She is not clipped so she will fly across the house and pick a perch. Once she is off her cage it is about a 50/50 chance if she is going to react to you kindly or draw more blood. I have had two large birds in the past so I'm not a novice at bird care and handling but everything I try seems to fail with her. If anyone has any pointers or ideas I would love to hear them. I know she has the potential to be a great companion!

 

[Pookamama]

Hmmm, I was just watching a vid on clicker training and target training. It was using those methods to gradually get birds used to the idea that hands are not bad and to give them positive interactions with you that involve yummy food. I am going to start doing that with Pepper and have my kids do it, she tolerates them but I want them to be able to interact with her in lots of positive ways. We are also considering clicker training our rats, we've had them for a month and they've gotten friendlier but still don't really trust us all the way.

 

[Kaya]

I recently got a very untrusting little grass parrot who had also had a pretty rough life, and has hardly had any positive interaction with humans. I taught him to step up In the first week. I did this by using one of the perches from his cage instead of my hand, and putting it by his feet, then moving up to his belly. That way when the bird bites it doesn't matter. Once he got used to that Id put my finger along the perch, getting closer and closer to the end he was steping up on, till eventually he was standing on my finger as well as the perch. Now he steps up every time he sees my hand.
Hopefully this will work for you?
Good luck!

 

[WharfRat]

I think sitting by the cage and talking softly to her will be beneficial and do it daily. Zon's can be tough sometimes, but as long as their life span is you have plenty of time still I would think. They can be a handful though too, make sure you train yourself to read their body/eye language, that's very important. I'm definitely jealous how the Zon's are with the wife, but I don't lose hope and never quit trying.