Taming parent-reared orange-winged Amazon parrots by neonatal handling

Tameness in parrots is often achieved by artificial rearing, in which chick s are typically removed from parents, fed a liquified or semi-liquified die t by oral gavage and maintained in thermally controlled brooders until they are grown. As an alternate means of rearing birds, we tested whether occas ional neonatal human handling of parent-reared chicks might produce tamenes s while reducing the risk of sexual imprinting on humans. Orange-winged Ama zon chicks (Amazona amazonica) were incubated and hatched by wild-caught pa rents, then were temporarily removed from the nest box, and handled at vari ous times during the nestling period. In Trial 1, handled chicks (n = 6) we re handled from days 10 to 39 of age for 10-20 min/day and from 40 days to fledging (days 56-/57) for 20-30 min/day. Nonhandled chicks (n = 4) were ha ndled only to record body weight and provide medication, as needed. After f ledging, chicks were evaluated for tameness, e.g., by their willingness to approach the handler, perch on a finger, be touched on the head, and by the ir respiratory rate in the presence of the handler. Handled birds differed significantly in all indices of tameness. In Trial 2, handled chicks were h andled for 30 min, four times/week either from days 15 to 36 (n = 3) or 35 to 56 (n = 3); results were similar to Trial 1. Chicks handled later tended to be slightly tamer than those handled earlier In both trials, the amount of time that handled chicks were in contact with humans was less than 2% o f the time they spent with conspecifics. It is therefore unlikely that thes e chicks imprinted either filially or sexually on humans, although this has not been experimentally tested. While continued handling is likely necessa ry to maintain tameness, these results support the concept that neonatal ha ndling of parent-raised parrots provides a low-labor and low-technology alt ernative to artificial rearing as a means of initially taming birds, thereb y improving their adaptation to life in captivity. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc .