Parrot Screaming

Question
Hello Maggie,

I have a Blue Breasted Amazon Parrot named Sonny. Sonny has been around several homes before he came to our household. He has a severe screaming problem, when anybody comes into the room he is in he screams and continues to scream for hours upon end. Sonny gets a lot of attention and still screams, I am probably pretty lucky that my ears haven't started bleeding. The screaming seems to be worst when my 8 year old son (Alex) is in the room. I don't know if it is because Alex complains about the bird the most, or makes the biggest reaction to Sonny's screaming. We have tried telling him to ignore Sonny's reactions but it is hard for him to ignore it. What can we do? I know there in not a instant cure, but is there anything we can do to help calm the bird down?

Any help you can provide would be appreciated,

Ron

Answer
HI Ron,

The first thing to do is to determine what is causing or encouraging the screaming. It sounds like you've already done a little bit of observation and have seen that Sonny's screaming is worse when your son is in the room. Watch for things that your son does differently from the rest of your family. (Is he high energy around the bird, is he louder than other members of the family?  There are lots of other factors that could play into this... you mentioned that your son reacts to Sonny's screaming more- in what ways?)

This series of articles should give you some better insight to screaming issues and help determine the best course for you to take to help Sonny learn some better manners. It will take a LONG time for this to be accomplished though (think in the weeks to months range), so don't give up too easily. Since Sonny has been tossed around from home to home, it will take him longer than some other birds to bond with your family and learn the appropriate behaviors within your "flock". :)

http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww11e.htm

http://www.parrothouse.com/sf3.html

http://www.parrothouse.com/sf8.html (this article was written with cockatoos in mind, but could be applied to most other speices of parrots as well)

http://www.wctropicalbird.com/bird%20education/question_8.htm

http://www.africangreys.com/articles/behavior/insecurity.htm (written with african greys in mind, but would apply to amazon parrots too)

http://www.africangreys.com/articles/behavior/screaming.htm (again, written w/ african greys in mind, but would apply to amazons too)

I hope this helps... good Luck with Sonny, and thank you for taking in such a needy bird. I'm sure Sonny will be very thankful for a family he can truly call his own. And you might find that with time and routine, Sonny will come out of this all on his own. (But it doesn't hurt to push the process along with tips from the articles above). :)

-Maggie