This has been such a wonderful summer I hate for it to end. I wasn’t in school and was able to spend time on my career. The birds enjoyed me being home. Tucker, the double yellow-headed amazon, has taken to jumping at or on to people when they are close to his perch. He also goes crazy when he sees either Bob or I with a towel (he thinks the towels are for him to step up on). One time he bit my husband on the face and another time he bounced off my arm onto a brick fireplace. His behavior is dangerous to all of us.
I have taken two measures to try to curtail his leaping. First, I am teaching him what “stay Tucker” means. I reinforce the words by petting him on the beak if I am near him. When he does leap at me, I try to get out of his way so he can land safely on the floor. I do not pick him up right away. I do talk to him in a tone of voice and with an expression on my face he understands as being displeased with him. For Tucker, Mom being unhappy with him is punishment enough. His big heart can’t take the rejection. This method will not work on some parrots but it will on the more intuitive, intelligent ones.
Our parrotlet’s (Norton) cage was looking very dirty, as if he was urininating all over the side of the cage. We got concerned and took him to our avian vet, The Avian Medical Center. The first thing the vetinary assistant did was put wax paper in the bottom of his travel box. Of course, eventually Norton urinated onto the wax paper. When the vet came in she looked him over, left the room, and came back with a box of the strips used to test sugar in urine. The sugar in his urine was so high it went off the color chart for the strips. Our vet suggested he might have an infection in his pancreas. She prescribed an antibiotic in the hopes of clearing up that problem and gave him some other kind of synthetic insulin. The insulin was expensive and experimental. It would cost hundreds a month to keep him on it if it worked. At Norton’s next appointment the sugar level was down but still high. Our vet assurred us even with diabetes he could live a long, healthy life. While this is not perfect, he seems to be healthy and happy.
Hello fellow parrot lovers. I have been in college and have not had the time to breathe, let alone blog. The flock survived Mom being gone a lot. It was mostly hard on Tucker, the Amazon, since I am supposed to be his mate. Sophie, the Severe, also missed me quite a bit. Now I am working from home so the challenge is not to spoil them anymore than they already are. They all seemed to handle the stress of the household change well because the six of them were all still together. It’s so cute looking around right now, all six are napping. Awww….
My husband and I have often wondered why Tucker, our Double Yellow Headed Amazon, emits this wonderful smell from his nares when he is excited or hormonal. I found this website the other day and thought it had a lot of information for us Amazon owners. Enjoy!
More news on the continuing saga of Tucker’s sinuses. One of his nares became swollen and had a discharge coming from it. I called my vet and she asked how long I had been giving him the saline solution treatment. I said about thirteen days off and on. She said I should have stopped after three days. I was very upset by the thought that I had caused my baby discomfort. Also I would have sworn she told me to continue the treatment for much longer than three days. However, I stopped rinsing his nares with saline solution immediately. The next day I took Tucker into the shower with me to rinse his nares with clean water. For the first time ever he wanted me to rub and rub his nares. The poor baby’s nares itched so bad. Since then the swelling has gone away completely and so has the discharge. Poor Tucker.
I have owned parrotlets for about fifteen years now. For those of you not familiar with parrotlets, they are the world’s smallest parrot. They have all the personality of a large parrot in a small body. Norton, my male Pacific Parrotlet, is so sweet and smart. We bought him from the Parrotlet Ranch (link to their blog). If you are looking for a parrot that can amuse itself, easy to take care of, quiet, cuddley, and a good companion than a parrotlet is a good choice.
It may take some training at first to set boundaries with your parrotlet. They are territorial about their cages but will mellow enough to let you get them out of the cage without getting bit. Norton gets onto his coil every time I go to get him out of the cage. He sees me put a poop cover on my shoulder and knows it is timeto come be with Mom. Norton brings love and joy to our home.
Tucker is still having a discarge from his nares once a week or so. Our avian vet, Dr. Litner, advised me to buy some sterile saline solution, put it into a spray bottle and give Tucker four squirts right at the nares every night for a week. Dr. Litner told me this works the same as a human blowing their nose. It works but we need to continue to use it whenever he has a discharge.
We just lost our beautiful lovebird Trixie, whom we had loved for 14 years. I still miss her greatly. She was so awesome that we wanted more parrots.
We were given another lovebird by Bev at BiZee Bird Store. She gave us a year and a half old male. He is energetic and funny. We named him Peanut, after the character created by Jeff Dunham. Peanut is a good little boy but he loves to chew on you. He doesn’t do it in a mean way. It is as if he is a baby teething and needs to chew on something, whether it be your fingernail, ear, glasses, or one of his toys. Trixie didn’t do this but we also didn’t know how old she was when we bought her. Has anyone else had any experience with this behavior? Is this usual for a young lovebird?
I read a few years ago in Bird Talk Magazine how the number of people owning lovebirds was dimishing. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. At the time our first bird, a peachface named Trixie, was alive and the queen of the flock. She was the old lady of the flock and let you know she was boss. Lovebirds are loving, cuddly, quiet, sweet, playful, entertaining and full of life. All you need to do is watch a lovebird tweet (chirp), see how they put all their energy in to it, to see how much heart they have. Out of all my birds, Trixie was and will always be the closest to my heart. She just was so special. Unfortunately, we lost her about 8 months ago at 14 years old.
Now we have another Peachface named Peanut. Peanut has that same sweet quality but because he is only 18 months old he is a bundle of energy. He chirps to himself constantly. He just cracks us up. When he gets older he will be as sweet as Trixie.
Bird fanatics, here me. You haven’t been loved by a bird until you’ve been loved by a Lovebird.
It just amazes me how different my male Double Yellow Headed Amazon, Tucker, is from my other parrots. Even Norton, the Parrotlet, is mellow when compared to the Double Yellow. Don’t misunderstand me, Tucker can be a big baby. He also is unpredicable, cocky, bitey, honery, and strong willed. You can’t play “bigger bird” with Tucker to control him. He needs to be talked to and reasoned with like the smart parrot that he is. All the other birds were trained not to bite in a matter of a few months but not Tucker. His behavior is improving but he still can act like a brat. Just today we were hanging out and he was being very sweet. Tucker had been sitting on my arm for at least 10 minutes when I got up to put him back on his perch. About half way back to his perch, which was only three feel away, he nailed me on the arm twice. Did he not want to go back to his perch or was he just being a brat? What do you all think?
In all the literature I have read, the male Double Yellow is the most difficult of all the Amazon parrots. Lucky me! How can one parrot be so beautiful and so obnoxious at the same time???
