Well, I have a 5 year old BFA (blue front Amazon)now, All mine. LOL.
Yes, Baby is here and I'll give a lil update.
Baby is doing fine. She is in mating season now as she squats down, rubs herself (uknow) on most anything that'll stand still, chirps and flutters some. I am told this should pass soon, I hope so. She is very frustrated about it and it is hard to work with her. No hurry, but still you can tell it's not how she wants to be.
Since her past is not real sure past 1 year ago when Glenda found her in a hamster cage, I am not sure she was not abused. She is VERY shy of anything in my hand, coffeecup, etc. But especially anything that resembles a stick. She runs away if I approach the cage with anything long. I need to get her perch trained, but I'm not doing that till this sex thing is finished and she has a cigarette and calms down some. jeez.
I have a perch I want to teach her to step up with. I put it on the cage top and she did some Linda Blair dance around it, crazy figure 8 moves with her head, flared her pupils, SCREAMED at it and then took her beak and in one swoop, she threw the 1 and 1/2 foot long, 1" around perch into the floor. yikes....need an birdorcist.
So...after awhile, I put it back up there. soon, it was her best boyfriend. She rolled around with it and then..yup...she mated with the stick that she had recently thrown in the floor. women??? I just left the room again and wait for the chirping to end.
She gets a 1/2 baby carrot for letting me pet her head without lunging at me or pulling away. If she does either of that, I just walk away...that hurts her feelings. Other than that, I sit in there with her, catching up on work, talking to her, just hanging out. The kids are in out of the room as well. But they have STRICT instructions to not touch her...yet.
She get's a 1/2 grape to go back in the cage. 1/2 cause I had to deal with Cecil's diabetes and grapes are loaded with sugars. A few is ok. but while I'm training her, she can have some 1/2's.
Since I can't perch train her and I ain't stickin my arm up to her yet, she needs to learn to get back in on command and she does. Not willing much, but she loves the grapes. I've designated the grapes and carrots just for those drills. I had to lay the grape on a white paper cause she couldn't make it out on the floor of the cage.
I had a HUGE playtop on the top. But after just one day of her climbing COMPLETELY on top, which is about 1 foot from the ceiling, she became very aggressive. Even to the point of charging at me when she was down. I removed the playtop and it calmed her down. There is a school of thought that says height can make them overdomiinant. I believe it worked here. She was much more docile after coming back down to earth. I hope after we get adjusted, I can put it back for her. She loved it. But....she has to act right. I didn't get this bird to just let her charge and run at me and my family.
I will not be reprimanding her. I know some do and that's fine. But, I've had more success with Cecil and Dood and other birds by ignoring the bad things and give good stuff for the good things. It hurts Baby's feelings if I walk away, u can tell. So I hope to limit anything that she could do bad with. Like not biting me. Not so much the pain, although that's bad, haha, but the fact that she doesn't need to think it's okay to rough house and bite. I'm afraid it could set her up for a bad scene. Zon's can be very very dangerous when overstimmed. Cecil nearly sent me to the ER cause I let him get overstimmed and stuck my hand out at the wrong time. I've got the war wound now.
She's a good talker. She says AWEEE And HI THERE! That Hi there is funny.
She also has some sort of R2D2 tweets and beeps and does that zon muttering to herself like a crazy ole woman. She does scream some, but it usually stops in about 30 mins or so. We just ignore it. Dont' tell her no or anything; that's reinforcing it. Bad attention is better than no attention.
I play XM jazz in her room. She likes it. I know they are supposed to like opera, but I can't take that...I tried to..but got nauseated and turned it off. Glad she likes jazz.
I have spoiled her this entire weekend. It has been a learning time. I've really enjoyed it, most of it.
Zons are full of life and energy. She plays like an idiot. All over the cage, I stuffed wiffle balls with napkins and let her shred them. She loved that. I had to take em away cause she would shred the wiffle ball till it came apart, then the jagged edge...she'd take her foot, move it around and then back up on it and have her way with the jagged edge. I was afraid she'd hurt herself. She is really desperate. poor wiffle ball never knew what hit him.
She is a challenge...but if it were easy...everyone would do it.
last nite, I learned this: come home from work, let Baby out and work off some steam and THEN try to get her to get a headscratch for a carrot. She is pretty wound up when I get home. She doesn't want to cooperate. This bird is WIDE open. I mean, she is basically RUNNING around the cagetop, shoulders down. I'm thinking she is getting some coffee and I don't know about it.
After she exercised, I got her to let me scractch her head for awhile then she got her carrot. Then...she started that wanting to rough house and making lunges at my hands..I just leave the room.
The sexual acting out seems to have lightened some. She has tried to ride that perch I put on top and she only does it if I'm talking to her...she backs up on it and looks directly at me. I just turn my back on her, don't say anything and leave the room. Soon she stops. so that is better, but she is very aggressive at times still. Head down, shoulders up, wobbling toward me in some deranged quaterback stance. Then..it passes.
Then at other times she will be very docile...
Her talking is better..is really cute the way she says HIIIIIIII....
To get her perch trained, I am letting her walk on the perches I laid on top of the cage, I took the toys off to get her used to being around the perches. She steps on them, I say GOOD BABY...a few times she stepped on them with both feet for a few seconds and I saig GOOD BABY.
We're just drilling on the perch thing. I need her perch trained. She is too old to not be perch trained. It takes time, but I'll get there. She is not as averted from them as before. Fortunatly the perches have some holes in them, so I stuff them with some lettuce and they are not as dangerous now. LOL. PLUS...you get a snack on the perch. It's like a Sonic StepOn. hahaha.
(aka Sonic Drive In)
Just thought you'd like to know how it's going. So many of you saw the Cecil chronicles.
My wife made some curtain thing to go above the mini blinds for the room she is in and it has parrots on the material. I told her thank you and told her that Baby was her's too.
She said "let's make this clear right now. BABY IS YOUR BIRD. Dood is mine. LOL"
(Sorry for the long post, but it's a culmination of two days and there is a lot of history that could be pertinant to a rescued bird's care and training.)

Mark, family and the burdz....
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Mark

nice to meet ya and baby. love to see some pics.........

I am a newby here still enjoy the stories and piccccczss

So, are we going to get pics or do we simply continue to use our imaginations? Hmmmmmm ... ?

It sounds to me as though you're going very well with her. Some of your ideas are quite creative and I'm interested to hear how things progress, particularly with the stick training.

My BF female also gets very hormonal at certain times of the year. Although I always give her head skritches, she pretty much can't be handled then without making the situation worse than it already is.

Pics ... pics ... pics ... pics ... well, you ge the picture .