Our Parrot has Changed

We have a wonderful blue fronted Amazon that we had adopted from the daycare where my daughter has been attending. He was very talkative and interacted with the family very well. He bonded very strongly with my wife and she can do anything to him; grab his beak and kiss him, hold him upside-down, pet and stroke anytime. My seven-year-old daughter and me are not able to handle him like that, he would bite us. When I get home before my wife, we'd say "Hi!" and that would be that. I'd talk to him but he'd be ho-hum about it. When my wife got home, he'd become very animated and call to her and yell for her if she left the room. I was still able to handle him and he had no problem walking around the block on my shoulders as we walked the dogs.

Then we went on a two-week vacation. He stayed with our neighbors who had previous experience only with cockatiels. We called several times to check on him and they said everything was going fine. When we got home and went next door to pick him up, he was all 'puffy' when he saw us. I should have read the warning but I went right up and pushed my hand under him to have him mount my fingers. He just about took my finger off! He clamped down and kept chomping on my thumb. I figured he'd stop after a few pulses, but he kept grinding on me and I had to quickly put him back on the cage. His antics drew blood. My wife was able to walk over and pick him up, kiss him on the beak and stroke him. He kept looking at me, eyes dilating in and out, and making strange, guttural noises.

When we got him back home, he kept staring at me and making those noises. If I get near his perch or if I walk near my wife when he's on her shoulder, he puffs up, flares his tail and lunges at me. At one time, he leapt off his perch and latched onto my finger, drawing blood again. He's also nipped at my daughter, but didn't break the skin.

Also, he doesn't seem to talk as much as he did when we left him. He had quite a good repertoire, but now all I hear are the guttural grunts and cracks.

I'm wondering, is he going into a mating state where he's 'claiming' my wife and will defend her from all comers? I also wonder is something happened while he was staying with the neighbors and he's stressed out over it.

Of course, this all could pass in a day or two, but I'm concerned about my boy and hoped someone might be able to shed some light on the situation.

Thanks for reading my post and feel free to comment. I need some guidance.

Parrots are actually very forgiving animals but they do get stressed out A LOT when they lose their flock (family group). It seems to me that he felt abandoned and suffered a lot during those two weeks. They don't understand about vacations and it's always a big problem to leave them anywhere. It's one of the reasons why they don't make good pets, you can't go anywhere, ever. They are not like dogs or cats, they adjust, parrots don't, they are not domesticated like them. It's usually better to leave them in their own home and hire/ask somebody they know to come over to clean the cage, feed them and spend time with them but that's a moot point now.

Yes, he is bonded to your wife and sees other people as competition for her affections. What you described is typical breeding behavior for male Amazons. I don't know if he has been DNA'd but he sounds like a male to me and male Amazons can be a holy terror when hormonal, some rescues would not even take them, they are so bad. I don't know how old he is but he might have reached the dreaded age of sexual frustration (depending on the husbandry it could start as early as at 5 years of age but it usually happens at around 8 or 10) so you will need to be very careful around him. Amazons males in this state will attack without provocation. Best thing to do is to put him on a strict natural daylight schedule and lower his protein and vitamin E intake, this will subdue the breeding hormones and will limit breeding behaviors only to spring and summer but it won't happen overnight, it will take months for his system to adjust. In the meantime get him some very good quality full spectrum light (this will help him make serotonin -the happy hormone- try spectrabird lights) and distract him: allow him as much time out of his cage as possible, buy him new toys, give him baths daily (always in the morning and in a warm room), change his cage position, etc. And, above all, be patient and learn to read his body language to avoid bites.

And, please, don't take him out when you walk the dogs. It might be cool to walk around the neighborhood with a parrot on our shoulder but it's really dangerous, he could fly away and get lost, get spooked and land in the middle of the road and get run over by a car or attacked by a loose dog, get snatched by a hawk, etc. There are millions of dangers out there for them...

Beatriz,

Thank you so much for your thoughts. Tiki was born in 91, according to his band, so he's around 17 years old. I tried to pick him up again this morning and he came right over and did his leg-lift to tell me he wanted to get up. He looked normal, no puffed feathers. But, as soon as he got on my hand, he clamped down on my thumb and pulsed on it. He didn't draw blod and started walking up my arm. I had my wife take him before he got to my shoulders because I was fearful he'd chomp on my ear or grab my cheek.

He's getting better with the talking this morning too, coming out with his usual "Hi!", "How are you?", and "Oh what a ..." (we're working on the rest of the song). He's not doing the gutteral noises either.

As for a natural day/night cycle, we need to work on that. He has a big cage with a nice perch on top where he spends the day outside his cage. I don't think he's ever been inside it. At night, we have a smaller cage upstairs where he sleeps inside. We don't have a cover for it and we don't get to bed until around 10:00 or later, so he stays up late at night. I'll look into a cover for it.

Ah, yes, at 17 years old, he is at his prime and wants to breed. Aggression is a secondary sexual characteristic in these birds so the behavior in itself is not abnormal, just undesirable. Do reduce his protein (seeds, nuts -especially almonds, very rich in vit E, the breeding vitamin- beans and other legumes), eliminate any animal products if he gets any (eggs, meat), put him on a strict natural daylight schedule, get him the full spectrum lights, distract him as much as possible and, above all, make sure your wife doesn't over-stimulate him with caresses. He should be OK in a couple of months at the most.

Tiki just tore me up again! I'm bleeding as I type this. My wife is now the only person in the house who can touch him. I've had it!!! I won't have a pet that will attack me.

Please, I need the name of a reputable parrot rescue in the Hartford CT area.

Marksman, I am sending you a personal message.

Thanks, Bea.

My wife loves the little brat and wont part with him. So, she can move him around, I wont touch him.

Like I said on my email to you, I wasn't planning on offering to take your bird (have enough of my own, thank you very much ) but thought that maybe I could help you with him as I have helped people in the past deal with their own aggressive birds...