Adopted a new family member tonight...

[NaomiSarah]

I adopted a orange-winged amazon tonight!!! He is in his mid-twenties. I've named him Rafiki (I name parrots after characters in The Lion King) which means Friend (it was my best friend's idea to name him that). His original name? Who knows?

He was a breeder bird for a while about four years ago, but his history before that is completely unknown. Based on his behavior I would say he was hand-fed or at least well-handled at some point in the last couple decades. So four years ago, the people who I got him from found him at a breeder's house where all the females were dead from lack of water and poor nutrition. They ended up taking in three male amazons, former breeders, and rehabbing them back to health. Big hearted people, I tell you.

But they have other birds, whom they bought as babies and they also have busy lives to lead, so they searched for homes for the three male amazons from that awful environment. I'm not sure who decided to call him "Green Bird", but it's the only thing close to a name he's had, though he doesn't seem to recognize it as significant to him.

So for a bird I got for free, I was expecting him to be very scared or timid or noisy or something else that made him for free... but these people truly just wanted to find him a good home. He says "Hello" and takes food from the hand really well. He's used to being in an open flight cage, so an ordinary parrot cage is a bit intense for him - I'm going to clip his wings so I can allow him out tomorrow (I DON'T believe in having my birds flighted without a flight cage, too many household dangers with kids). I hope I don't scare him too much with the wing clipping...

He loves my husband already which is awesome, and I'm so excited I just had to share!!!

 

[TaylorChicken]

Oh how fun parrots are so neat, congrats!

 

[NaomiSarah]

Here's a pic - sideways though, I'll do better when he's out of the cage.

 

[SunnyChic]

He looks like a sweetie! That's so neat that he's so tame; he's a lucky fellow to have found you!

 

[Sharoane]

What a gorgeous bird!

My goffins cockatoo is a former breeder. The theory is that he was handtamed at some point because he failed miserably as a breeder by killing his mate. He's about 15 and is not tame, but he at least doesn't bite! He loves to talk and be sung to, he plays peekaboo with me, but if I try to touch him he just freaks out.

 

[NaomiSarah]

Yeah, we're working round-the-clock to resocialize Rafiki, he's doing so well! Managed to get one foot on my husband's hand the other day, but with older birds, successes are sometimes so far between that it's hard to stay diligent. He's the oldest bird I've ever tried to resocialize, but my theory is this: If it takes him five years of me standing there with my arm aching for hours every single day, and he finally gets on my hand in five years... well, I'll sure be glad, then, that I did all this work now.

And if he never steps on my hand, at least he knows I cared enough to try.

 

[NaomiSarah]

Quote:
I think, with most parrots, that it all comes down to figuring out their currency. Rafiki works for sunflower seeds. My old eclectus worked for pine nuts. My macaw (who is a breeder now in one of the Carolinas) always worked for Brazil nuts. So Rafiki doesn't get any sunflower seeds at all... unless he takes them straight from my hand, or tolerates my hand in his cage for a long while, or reaches across part of my arm for the seed. It's working well.