time when we brought our baby Amazon home!


I bought (Molly), our Amazon, from a reputable breeder. She had been hand reared well, all health checked, D N A tested, wormed, fully weaned, etc, etc. We had bought her a huge cage, numerous toys, play stands, good quality parrot seed, pellets, fresh vegetables and fruit was in abundance, you name it she had it!! This bird was going to have a fantastic life! I had this idea in my head that Molly would be living amongst the family, out of her cage more than in, joining in with breakfast, dinner and tea, accompanying us on trips, generally conforming to ‘our ways’. It was going to be a piece of cake, after all I did handle the birds in our aviaries years ago, and more so, I had brought up 3 children, managed a home, and a husband!!! Owning a baby Amazon parrot would be a breeze, how wrong was I, and how naive of me to think that it would definitely be as easy as that. For some bird owners it is exactly like that, which must be great, but sadly for many others; it is more about what you are just about to read next!!! Prior to bringing Molly home I bought a couple of books on ‘keeping parrots, these books were ok; however the advice was quite conflicting. I was under the notion that when you bring your bird home, if she/he seems willing to come out of its cage after short time, then you should allow it. Maybe this is the case for some birds, but for our parrot it was not the right thing for us to do. It all seemed so simple, take the baby Amazon out of its cage, sit on


08 BIRD SCENE


the floor with the family


members(preferably in a circle), and gently pass the parrot from one person to the next, talking calmly etc, etc, after all baby Amazons DO NOT BITE!!!!!! So after a few attempts of getting the bird ‘to step up’ she came out with us that is where the trouble began. Molly was not happy to be passed from person to person, but rather she wanted to fly around the room, land on my shoulder, and attempt to bite anyone who came close to touching her. When I attempted to get her on my hand I would receive a very hard bite, she certainly wasn’t beaking, or steadying her balance; these were blood drawing bites!! How could a baby Amazon bite so hard when all we had heard was that they were cuddly, loving birds?? What was wrong with ours, we thought? We had her checked out by a vet but all was well, thankfully. Please let me make this very clear that this behaviour was very unusual at such a young age, I was told that over and over again, but that did not help me in any way. After a few weeks I had no choice but to call the breeder, I was in need of help and advice. I had already bonded with Molly and had no intentions of asking the breeder to have her back. The breeder had no reason for this behaviour, she had heard from the other people that had bought the two other parrots, (Molly’s brother and sister) and they were absolutely fine, no biting at all. I had to ask myself what we were doing wrong. I felt a failure, so disappointed and very badly bruised!! All I wanted was for us to


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