As of 7/29/2007, Zeba has moved in with his adoptive parents! Gosh, I'm going to miss you, Zeba, but I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO proud of you on how far you have come in trusting people. It was a true pleasure to have spent the last 7 months with you. I wish you much success with your new family and all the happiness in the world! you are one of a kind!
Nothing much has changed with Zeba except that he has become exceptionally calmer since moving into a room of his own, away from our own amazon. he also r-e-a-l-l-y looks forward to target training. to start the training (to let him know we are starting), i lay out different pieces of toys - wooden balls of various sizes, a target stick, some wooden and acrylic rings, a bowl, etc. then he startes approaching me and we begin. he knows how to pick up certain things when i say "hold" and point to an object and he knows to touch the target stick with his beak when i say "touch" (even if he has to walk a distance to touch it). i am working with him to hold an object and drop it into a container...not very easy, but we'll see.
Zeba seems to now love to hang upside down in his cage and talk to you..probably his way of getting attention now that he is not in the living room. what a cutie!
Zeba will actually be going to his adoptive parents this weekend so my time with him is limited. these people that he is going to have shown much dedication in getting to know him as they have driven 30 minutes (one way) to come to my home and spend time with zeba once a week for the last month. i think they could make a great home for Zeba. :-)
zeba still continues to live in a separate room from the other birds, due to him becoming aggressive to anyone in the house except for Pico, his amazon buddy. since moving him in there, we have allowed contact between zeba and pico occasionally, but usually on a non-touching distance. (they seem to be okay just being able to see eachother)
zeba has consequently become much more calm. he is almost at the "cuddly" point that we had before he came out of quarantine. when zeba hears the other birds calling, he does look up and tries to look for them, but he doesn't become as aggressive as he used to be. i am also working more with him one-on-one. we are working on targeting a stick and holding rings. i am trying to progress him to a point where he will place the ring on a short spindle. i have also started working with him on stepping up on my arm. he feels uncomfortable stepping on to my hand, but we'll work on that. so far so good!
the last time he bit me was last week, and it was my fault. i was walking into his room, and he was out of the cage on the ground. i took a step in and he went straight for my feet. he got 3 of my toes and i (as gentle as possible) shook him off. he usually does go for toes, but in that room, he's never lunged for me so i thought i was safe. YEAH RIGHT! well, no going in there barefoot if walking upright, or if you are barefoot, enter the room on your knees!
yesterday was the 4th of july. it was SUCH a beautiful day - GORGEOUS! we decided to go on a short hike somewhere on the peninsula and took zeba and our amazon, pico. first off, zeba was absolutely happy to see pico again. lots of pinning eyes and flayed tail, but was okay. we kept zeba in his travel carrier on the hike so they were kept apart, but they could still see eachother. the hike was about 2 miles roundtrip and it was mostly shaded, which was a relief from the hot sun. every once in a while we came across some other hikers and we talked with some about zeba (zeba and pico were calling for attention every once in a while as well with their banter. ;-) ).
at mid point, we all got to eat some apple and nectarine. the two amazons preferred the apple, so my husband had to share his (i had the nectarine).
when we got home, everyone was pretty tired, so both amazon went to their own cages to calm down and rest. i spent some time with zeba and he really calmed down to where i was comfortable with him standing on my chest as i laid down on the bed in his room. he took a short nap while standing there (i think i did too) and we had some preening sessions, target and step-up on my arm training as well. all-in-all a very good day with no incident to report.
pics of zeba on the hike - he seems to think he is a green species of bat!
its been a few days since we moved zeba into the "quarantine room". so far it has been working! zeba has really calmed down! i spend some quiet time with him in our bedroom and i can scratch him around his head and deep into his feathers for a while. i havent been able to do that for a while now because he would just constantly pin his eyes at me while he was with pico.
zeba does pin his eyes less and less each day, and he has his large-eyed look again - something very similar to a puppy-dog look. i usualy lie down on the ground and read a book and zeba will just climb and sit contentedly on my leg or back. he even preened my hair tonight! its great to have this lovey-dovey zeba back.
i think on the weekend, i will allow zeba to come out and visit pico on the playstand. its good for him to have a buddy. but he will continue to live in the other room just so that he doesn't get over excited or territorial around pico as much as he used to be.
to start off, here is a video of zeba running from our bedroom to the playstand in the living room where his buddy, pico, is waiting for him. (forgive the clutter)
don't you just LOVE his waddle technique? and my husband is the one that is taping this...notice how zeba just buzzes past him without a care and goes directly to pico!
anyways, we have made a few changes in this home...the reason for it is zeba. well, pico, my amazon, should get some credit for this change as well, but since he is our bird and this is zeba's journal, i will talk about it being zeba here. (sorry zeba!)
well, for a few weeks (about a month or so), hormones have come into play with the behaviors and personalities of ALL birds in this home, and it has not been pretty for the most part. (don't worry...no casualties!)
zeba and pico has seemed to really have become good buddies. we thought it was more of a "hey, im an amazon, YOU'RE an amazon...lets help eachother break those pesky new feather sheaths?!". we believe that these two birds are male, but we have no DNA evidence to back that up. and so far, there have been no "mounting" issues, so i continue to believe they are both males.
sometimes they decide to try and climb down from the playstand. if one goes down, the other one is sure to follow. this is NOT good since zeba will go after any and ALL toes. and pico will come to the rescue of zeba if we try to step him up onto a stick to place him back on the playstand. it just makes it really tricky and difficult to put both back on to the playstand. (we can usually catch them before they get to the ground tho, but it is me - not hubby - who is capable of doing this, otherwise zeba will be on him in a second).
zeba has also been constantly hissing and pinning his eyes at me. when i step him up on a stick to transport him back to his cage, he would more frequently aggressively bite on the stick and try to inch his way up to my hand to take a bite. i have tried - with mixed results - to offer him a good-sized nut to keep his beak busy. i have also - with much unhappiness on my part - tried holding a small towel in one hand and zeba on the stick in another and warded off any attempt at biting the stick and me. zeba absolutely HATES towels and he will fight constantly if towelled (which is why i served him his meds in goldfish crackers). thats why i didn't like having to do that.
SOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo, I decided to move zeba's cage into the now empty quarantine room. my reasoning behind this is to get zeba to a calmer state of mind. taking pico, for the most part, out of his sight will hopefully lessen his aggressive territorial behavior while being around pico.
knowing how zeba was while in quarantine and just being around me, i miss that about him, and i do want to encourage that lovey, gentle personality. i can tell that it is still in him...i have occasionally taken him with me into my bedroom, closed the door to avoid any distractions and just sat with him. after just a few minutes, he calms down, fluffs up and gives me the most contented looks. he does pin his eyes a bit sometimes, but he never tried to bite me. i turn down my energy levels and i exude a calm, friendly feeling. zeba would just climb onto my leg and perch calmly, sometimes perching on one leg. if he wants some scritches, he will slowly make his way closer to me and fluff his feathers. its really cute.
just to keep zeba company, i have also moved bentley in the room with him. they seem to be doing well in that room.
i don't allow it every day, but maybe once a week and on the weekends, i allow pico and zeba to spend some time together. they are of course excited to be with eachother (saw the video above?) but i'm hoping it will be for the better that we keep the two apart for most of the time. i want to get back to target training with zeba, and i definitely could not do that with zeba and pico being together - they would constantly go to eachother and contact call one another when the other was not in the same room. being for the most part away from eachother, they dont contact call each other as much.
i have only moved the two apart since the beginning of this week, so its still in the infancy stages. *crossing fingers*
a family came to visit both zeba and bentley today. they are mickaboo-approved, so they were interested in finding the right bird for them to adopt. how exciting!
zeba does have a personality that requires an experienced handler. he does have his loving side, but he has been previously abused - for how long, we don't know. i have had him for only 5 months and that hardly allows for much healing of old wounds. although zeba did show some of his nice side to the mother and daughter of the family, i think his "rough" personality made them shy away from him. i really don't blame them at all. the family has only experience with smaller birds and if i was them, i would also opt for a friendlier amazon to start with (hence bentley will probably be adopted by them - woohoo!)
i did learn a few things about zeba with their visit...
1) zeba has gotten better around men...from what i understand, although the father was in the room with zeba (as he was out of the cage), zeba stood at alert, but did not attack him.
2) zeba will take advantage. the mother did get bitten by zeba. the reason for the bite was because she had him step up on to a stick and tried to put him back into the travel carrier i placed him in. (i allowed the family the choice to allow him out of the travel carrier or not). the bite wasn't as bad as it could have been, but i think it left a bruise and it did break skin.
in the right hands, zeba will do very well. i tried to do some one-on-one training today with him, but when i parted him and pico (my amazon) to take him into the bedroom for some isolation and training, pico and zeba constantly called to each other...needless to say i couldn't get any training done. zeba was only alert to hear pico's next call. i think the only time i can work with zeba is after i put pico to bed.
so it will be that zeba will continue to be available for adoption. i really dont mind this, but i need to put more emphasis on training and honing his energies to more positive behaviors.
