My amazons

[goodfellowsheryl]

We are chicita the double yellow, Lucky and Sweety the blue fronts. They are all 10 years old. The pair is avrescue from a breeding situation. Chiqua came from a woman who returned to India.

Sent from my LG-V533 using Tapatalk

 

[SailBoat]

Love the photos the the family!!!

FYI: Work daily at developing a strong relationship with all of your Amazons over the next six to (if you are lucky) eight months! It is very important since you have two species of the hot three Amazons as part of your family. Since Amazons can play heavily off of each other, you will need to have a solid relationship in place when (not if) they all hit Hormonal Season. If they start playing off each other, you will need to at least separate them to different rooms to allow them to cool down and settle back from the need to kill something, over the top rage that can happen if they spar with each other. Remember, they cannot control the when or the how much. That is our responsibility in seeing it and separating them before it builds to craziness...

The Goal is to be able to have one step-up on you while the others are near by, move away and come back and switch-off Amazons. Take care of having all three on you at one time as keeping tabs on one can be difficult enough.

With two of the Hot Three Amazon species, you need to become very skilled at working the dancing bath towel to first separate and then move them away from each other when a hormonal rage sets in.

By the way, does you DYH Amazon have any splashes of red on the nape of the neck?

 

[goodfellowsheryl]

Thanks for the advice. My dyh is a sweetheart. We kiss and she combs my hair. Shes hand shy and doesnt want to step up unless she flies off her cage. Then its fine for me to rescue her. Ive been trying to get her to jump up for 8 months. One night i was rounding them up for bed and. Sweety was keeping just a few inches away from me. Chica starts yelling. Jump Up! Jump Up! So funny. She knows what it means but she wont do it herself. Lucky and Sweety are a pair. I was told not to separate them or they would get depressed. Previous owner. Lucky goes to his bachelor pad cage when he feels like it. He can be a monster sometimes. Hes guarding his mate a lot on her cage but more pleasant away from her. I do have the safety towel at all times!! I would love to get them to step up on my arm or a perch but forcing it seems to upset them. Eventually we will trust. Each other more.

Sent from my LG-V533 using Tapatalk

 

[wrench13]

Forcing parrots to do something they do not want to do, whether step up, or any other trick or command, definately is a trust busting thing. Try to figure out a food motivated way to get them, especially Chiquita, to step up for a treat. Step up is the first and most important trick to teach any parrot. Its the one that has to almost become second nature for them to do it when asked, because you can never tell when you might have to move them in a hurry. Like any trick training, you want to reward right as the action is done correctly, so the bird makes the connection with the treat/action. Settle on a trigger , either a verbal request or sound and all must use the same one. So it should go request/ action/ reward closely. Any positive action, as long as it is towards the requested action should be taken as a positive. So ask for Step Up, the bird may only place his foot on your hand at first, but that is a move in the right direction, and gets a reward. Search on here for the topic "Clicker training" for more ideas. The clicker can be used to immediately tell the bird he has done something good ( cuz a treat might not be right at hand),and then followed by a treat. What ever you decide on,make sure to do it 100% of the time, always consistently, or the parrot will become confused and not be sure of what your asking for. Patience is the key. SOme parrots get this concept easily, and some it can take weeks or even months to get the first trick or request down. But the good news is that once they nderstand that you are trying to teach them something, most parrots learn quicker each time you try to show them something new. Teach one action at a time. The other good side benfit is that if once your DYH gets it, the other 2 will see her getting rewards and will be that much quciker to learn themselves. Try to end a training session on an upbeat positive note, so he bird remembers it that way. Parrots in general, and Amazons specifically, are very smart and DYH and BFs more so.

SOme other things to try or keep in mind when training;

Set a specific time each and every day to train

• Keep training sessions short at first, 5 minutes or so at first. Increade very slowly as the bird learns new things.
• Do training away from thier cage or play stand and other parrots - allows the trainee to focus better'
• Use their very most favorite treat as the training treat, and for nothing else!
• Remove the food bowls an hour or two before training sessions. Not to starve them, just to let them focus better.
• BE CONSISTENT !!
• Break the trick or action iinto smaller actions for more complicated tricks or for more stubborn birds
• Be upbeat and cheerful when acknowledging the positive actions the bird takes. Tone is important!
• Some parrots respond better to verbal praise as the reward than to treat rewards. Work on that basis.

Good luck! Thanks for adopting the 2 Blue Fronts!

 

[SailBoat]

Our DYH Amazon is a mama's boy and will do near anything for his girl friend.

That said, I'm the transportation and that means that Step-up is near all me. Since he is fully flighted and free roaming, one needs to develop a set procedure (see Al's advice above) that includes specific approaches, verbal requests, locations and developing a want /need to Step-up! Only good things happens when he Steps-up.

Based on our experiences of working with many Amazons over the years. We have found that using 'commonly' used words by most people becomes very important! Point being, Step-up is widely seen as a founding (base) request, which is used widely.

So much for the single person Amazon thing!