When Storm the blue front Amazon parrot came to us he was too unhealthy to even dream about flying – weighing a whopping 580 grams! He has now been weighing at a steady 440 grams for the past week and continues to stay around 440 grams and a little above. Today, for instance, he was 445 grams. And in that week he has been experimenting with flying in his new aviary environment!

His aviary is 6′ diameter and I swear every time I look outside at him he is on a different perch. I placed his food and water as far away as possible, and even put some pellets on the ground so he’d have to move around the cage as much as possible and get the most amount of exercise.

However, he has been exercising plenty on his own! He sleeps at the highest perch he can find and plays all over the cage! He flies from side to side every so often and sometimes runs around on the ground. He doesn’t quite have the muscle mass to fly up from the bottom, and I think he knows that… but he can go from one side to the other, even though he loses a little bit of altitude in the process.

This has really made Storm a lot healthier and better looking in general.

I actually offered him nuts as well as a taste of his old diet and instead, he disregarded the nuts and seeds and reached out for the piece of broccoli I was holding!

Talk about a complete 180! We couldn’t be more proud of Storm for his new exercise plan, weight loss and healthy new diet. He has even been nicer to Dave since he’s been out there which is great. And he only screams if the macaws scream, but it doesn’t last more than a minute or two (or however long the macaws last) maybe he’s yelling at them to stop yelling!

Dave and I spent the day cleaning out the aviaries (so excuse the still mess in the background of the video sometimes)… we raked them all out and changed out toys from all the aviaries. And in the moment, since we moved our three smaller parrots inside for the cleaning… I decided, why not try Storm outside now?

We hadn’t planned on moving him out there that early but decided it couldn’t hurt so we packed him in his travel cage and I opened it inside the aviary. He climbed out and walked across the grass as Dave video-taped and I got the travel cage out of there.

Here’s the exciting part…!

Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot

Storm made no attempts to attack Dave (which he had done in the past with both previous cages) and when I left and went inside, Storm actually made his purring noise of contentment to Dave! When Dave came in the house and shared that with me I couldn’t be more excited about it!

I went out to see how Storm was doing as I spent the first few minutes with him and he NEVER SCREAMED! I thought for sure he would scream as we left him out there the first time but not an unhappy?noise at all. He made only happy noises, preened and found a comfy high perch he liked. He slept out there for the night as we put him out there around 6pm or 7pm and an hour or so later it got dark out.

Who knew the transition could be so easy and cause such a difference?! We’re thrilled… if we can end on that note while every day he builds stamina, gets in better physical shape and continues to eat a healthy diet, I think we will be returning a healthy bird with YEARS added onto his life span!

And in case some of you lost track, this is day 22 for Storm! What progress in those 22 days!

Note to take home: If your bird is in bad physical shape, simply work on providing your bird with the opportunities to climb, fly and expand his normal routine. This will help him work himself out and lose?fat?the healthy way!

Although we had the set back of the Spring season kick into gear for Storm, we are still making progress with him! Dave and I left for 3 days while Storm and the rest of the flock stayed home.

When we got back, I saw little red wood chips all over the bottom of Storm’s cage and realized he was picking at his wood parrot toys while we were away! I think a little “alone time” was good for him because it encouraged him to self-entertain rather than keep waiting for me to enter the room to do it for him!

Not only that, but he really dove into eating his organic pellets! Check it out…

Storm was already eating his organic pellets, but I usually gave him fresh foods along with them and he tends to always prefer the fresh stuff over the pellets. I think being away was great for him as he really got to just dive into the pellets without distraction of other foods.

And although he had sort of manipulated a few toys in the past, he hadn’t actually destroyed them in any way before so this toy shredding thing was definitely a first and a huge step of progress!

Tip to take home: Giving your parrot some alone time can be a good thing once in a while, as long as you give him all the neccessary tools it takes to self-entertain while you aren’t around.

I decided to do a video blog about the changes we made to Storm’s environment in an effort to set him up for better success in his time here with us. So please take a look!

Tip to take home: Setting an animal up for success just means putting the odds in his favor. For example, if you’re going to train your bird a new trick, you don’t want to start at your neighbor’s house, during a party with a bunch of strangers looking over your shoulder and talking distractions and music playing. That is setting your bird up to fail. However, if you work with the training table they are used to “learning” on, with no music or outside distractions and it’s just you and your bird and he’s on a training diet, you have set your bird up for succeeding at the task ahead.

You’re all probably wondering what happened with Storm?! Well, I will tell you…

Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot

In my attempt to let Storm spend more time with me, I brought him out in the morning to watch me work out. He can watch me from his cage, but I thought some “out of cage” time was even better. The quality time trick had worked so well the day before that I thought… why not?

Well, I quickly learned the reason why not…

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At home, Storm was allowed on his owner’s shoulder by choice. He wasn’t put up there, he was LET up there to put himself there. This is a huge problem over time and it’s best to always PUT your bird on your shoulder if you want it there, and not let it put itself there.

The reason why is because you bird will know that it’s only OK to go there if you put him there and otherwise will stay on your hand. It can also be super tough to break the habit of a bird who immediately lets himself on to your shoulder and if he does it to you, it is likely he will do it to everyone else, too. Such was the case for Storm.
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