Tucuman driving me crazy!

[jriley]

I am hoping somebody can help me with my male Tucuman Amazon. He is driving the whole household crazy with his nonstop screaming and is also a very aggressive biter.

This guy is about five years old and I've had him since January of this year. I bought him from a breeder, who told me he had been handfed and a pet but then had been put into a breeding situation. She said his female died unexpectedly last fall and she thought that he would be happier as a pet again then getting a new mate.

He was quiet and relatively easy to handle the first two weeks or so I had him, though he growled a little and appeared to prefer we stay away from him. After that first two weeks, he surprised me by biting hard when I went to transfer him out of his cage. I've had parrots of other species before, so I pretended not to notice the bite and continued to take him out. Within a few days he was lunging at me to bite whenever I tried to move him in or out of his cage. If I tried to use a perch, he would run down the perch and bite me. I started using a heavy leather glove and he bit that, too, but at least it didn't cause bleeding. By this point I had nasty scabbed welts all over my hands. I talked briefly to a behaviorist at a bird expo and she suggested using a second perch to defend my hand, and that is working well. He will still bite if you try to touch him, though.

The biting is annoying, but I can deal with not being able to handle him. The screaming is disrupting the whole house. He screams every day for most of the day when we are home. As far as I can tell, the screaming started in response to our Quaker parakeet's screaming. The Quaker will screech anytime he sees someone enter or leave the room. The Amazon started to yell back and they got into a pattern of yelling back and forth. The Quaker screaming is annoying, but bearable, and we can get him to be quiet by talking to him or taking him out. The Amazon won't be quiet not matter what we do. He seems to have become attached to the Quaker. If we try to do anything near the Quaker's cage, he will start screaming and throws his toys at us. Several times he has jumped off of his cage and gone over to the Quaker's cage.

In the past, I or my family have had cockatoos, greys, conures, and cockatiels. I've never spent much time around Amazons but had always wanted one because they are so comical and have such great personalities. This guy is really funny, too. When I walk over to his cage, he will run over and grab one of his jingle balls and roll with it and attack it and show off. He seems to be interested in interacting with me, but absolutely doesn't want to be touched. I'm not sure how to interpret his behavior or how to go about fixing it.

The breeder I got him from says the screaming is hormonal and that it will go away. Occasionally I will see him display when screaming, but most of the time he is just sitting on his playtop or in his cage and will just start screaming. He doesn't seem to be particularly agitated. I can't figure out if it is communication with the Quaker, trying to get attention from us people, just pure hormonal yelling, or even just boredom.

He has a very large macaw-sized cage with a playtop. When we are home, his cage is open and he can move freely to his playtop. He has lots of toys inside (coiled climbing rope, swing, chew toys, musical toy) and on top (jingle balls, dowels, barbells, wooden blocks, fruit skewer, and more). He appears to spend a lot of time chewing when we aren't home and he is inside his cage because his wooden toys are just about demolished now. When we are home, he mostly sits on his playtop perch unless someone is interacting with him. His cage is in our living/dining room and is right next to both our couch and our dining room table, so he is always in the action and we do have a busy home: five kids (ages 8-20), two dogs, three cats, the Quaker, two cockatiels, various assorted visiting friends.

I've tried taking him away from his cage to work with him and he doesn't bite when I have him in my bedroom. He gets very anxious, though, and appears desperate to return to his cage and he and the Quaker screech to each other until I bring him back. He has a big play tree and a second cage on our back patio but when I bring him out without the Quaker he screams the whole time and leans toward the house. If I bring both birds outside, they are both very quiet.

Right now, his cage is covered from 9 pm until about 7:30 am. We do lights out at 8:30 and then wait for him to settle down before we put him in his cage and cover him. He is most active on workdays from 4 pm (when I get home) to about 7 pm and then will start to quiet down around 8. When we're home all day, he is noisy from the time he wakes up until about 2 pm and then is quiet until about 4.

We don't really have anywhere else to put his cage and we do want him to be out where he can get lots of interaction. I've thought about taking his extra cage and putting it in our bedroom as a "time-out" cage for when he is noisy. Would that work? I can't imagine letting him sleep in our bedroom, though, as he is so horribly noisy first thing in the morning. As soon as he sees someone moving around, he starts screaming.

I emailed back and forth with a Tucuman breeder and he thought that it sounded like my guy prefers other birds to people and that he would probably be happier returning to a breeding situation. I have been trying to work with him for the past three months, but haven't seen any improvement other than he now really loves to play ball with me and seems to be trying to talk. I have posted a few ads offering him for sale, but I really am attached to him and would prefer to work it out. Is there a way to figure out the source of his behavior? I keep having this suspicion that as long as we have the Quaker he will be more interested in the other bird than in us people. The Quaker is here to stay (he's my husband's darling), so if that is the case then he will have to find a new home. Anyone opinions on this mess?

Thanks,
Julie Riley

[Joanie Doss]

I hope you still have your bird. What you are experiencing is hormonal screaming. Nothing is worse as it goes on nonstop all day. He is declaring his territory and also letting other Tucuman Amazons know there is an available one.

He is getting too much light. He needs a minimum of 12 hours of darkness. Generally it takes 14 hours of darkness to break a hormonal cycle. He will not stop the screaming until this cycle is broke. You will also notice less aggression once he is no longer hormonal.

Joanie Doss
The Amazing Amazons
Joanie Doss - Books 1, 2,3

[Copper]

Sounds too, that he is cage aggressive. It would be a good idea to put him in time out in a different room.