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Anonymous
My family has recently adopted a Blue-fronted Amazon. He's 15 years old, and his last two homes were... well, neglectful you might say. He's warmed up to us a lot since bringing him home a week ago.

How long before I can pet him or hold him? Weeks? Months? He takes food from my hand pretty well, but he's very territorial about his cage. He comes waddling over, beak snapping when we touch it.

Also, what's up with some of the things he does? He likes to tilt his head and look at us upside down. And a few times he's spread his wings a little bit and whipped his head around.
>> Anonymous
It depends on how long it takes him to warm-up to you and feel secure. Talk to him regularly, don't push too hard, and don't get too offended if he takes to certain members of the family more than others. Some parrots will bond with one person and some will flat-out dislike or ignore members of one gender. They're weird like that, with their own individual and semi-eccentric personalities.

A lot of parrots are extremely territorial about their cages. They're like teenagers and their bedrooms. For the first few months you may want to don thick gloves and change the paper/scrape the droppings off the cage bottom with him in it, that way he'll get used to you messing with it and won't be afraid of leaving the cage for fear that you'll screw with his things while he's out.
>> Anonymous
you might also consider that he may never become friendly enough for you to pet him or touch him. It all really depends on the bird.
>> Anonymous
Yeah, pet birds that weren't hand-raised or who didn't have hand-raised parents tend not to like contact with humans they didn't initiate. So no petting, most you'd see is them sitting on your shoulder, finger, head etc. I wouldn't push it unless he gets really comfortable around your hands.

So the answer is kinda... "ask the parrot, he knows". All of them are individuals, with their own quirks and (if he was indeed neglected for a decade and a half) sometimes neuroses.

But really, lots and lots of being around him should do just nicely. Remember to greet him by name whenever you come into the same room, tell him good morning and good night and whatever, stuff like that; they learn from context and most parrots find that very rewarding. Might not want to babble like at a baby or a dog though, some parrots can catch when you're doing that and act pissed off if not given the proper respect.

Also, get a proper lock on the cage. Amazons have a beak that's well-suited to manipulating and/or tearing apart a naïve or flimsy locking mechanism, it won't take very long before he learns to repeat the moves you'd do to open the cage door. I once heard a story of a thirty year old parrot who could open a 3-digit combination lock on her cage door, from having watched her owner turn the bits.
>> menchi !IgWlr3a0sk
entirely depends on the bird.
I had a Grey that was neglected, and warmed up to me the first week I had her.. best bird I ever had. I had a double yellow amazon that never did warm up. That bird and I never got along, so I sold him to a lady who had another one, and they did fine.
>> Anonymous
>>113779
>>Some parrots will bond with one person and some will flat-out dislike or ignore members of one gender.
This is very true, I had a female blockatiel that hated women. She would squeal and bite at them, but I could pet her for hours. As a matter of fact, she demanded that I do so. If I was to stop petting her head, I had to remove my finger as fast as possible or she'd bite me. You could only pet her a certain way, too, if you did it wrong you would also get bitten.
>> Anonymous
>>114055
A tiel with an attitude problem? Man, that's kinda out of character for them, innit?
>> Anonymous
I have a cockatiel that has a severe attitude problem too. She wasn't even a year old yet when we got her, and she came into a household with a toddler in it. The baby would get really excited when she saw the bird and rattle the cage, causing the 'tiel to fucking FREAK. Now, you can't so much as change her water without getting bitten. Fucking babies.
>> Anonymous
We had one in our family.

He died 64 years old.

=(