Imagine walking through the jungle and looking up into the trees overhead and seeing a rainbow of birds chattering amongst themselves. Among that colorful flock of Amazon parrots, you might see the well-loved and respected Blue Fronted Parrot.
The Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot goes by many names. No, not Polly, we’re talking about species names. You may know them as a Turquoise Fronted Amazon or simply a Blue Fronted Parrot. It is one of 27 species of Amazon Parrots and the Blue Fronted hails from Central America, South America, and a few Caribbean Islands.
Take special note, they live a very long time! If you’re interested in obtaining an Amazon Parrot you should know in advance that they can live 50 years or more in captivity. They require much more commitment than buying a little hamster! So how do you distinguish a Blue Fronted from its 26 other Amazon brothers and sisters? It has a bright blue forehead and blue and white feathers on the crown of its head.
The remainder of the Blue Fronted’s feathers resembles your typical Amazon coloring. They’re primarily green with touches of bright yellow on their ears, cheeks, and crown with red on their wings. They’re large birds that grow to around 15 inches long from tip to tail and are amazingly graceful despite their size.
The Blue-Fronted Amazon is not without its issues. The males tend to be aggressive, particularly as they reach sexual maturity. Aggression often rears its ugly head in the form of biting and screaming. This tendency can be curbed, and often eliminated, by providing them an ideal environment and with proper training. Training is by far and away your best tool against aggression.
Done correctly, it teaches your Amazon parrot a language it can understand and communicate back to you and establishes a strong bond of trust between you and your Blue Front. Barring any aggression issues, the Blue Fronted Amazon is actually a wonderful pet. They’re extremely intelligent and actually quite loving. Their intelligence means that they’re not only easy to train but they can also learn to mimic sounds and are considered one of the best talkers among the Amazon species. Among being able to talk and mimic they are stunning fliers and can easily be flight trained as well.
Be careful what you say around your Blue Fronted! They can learn a large vocabulary and because they tend to learn words that are said with strong emotion, they often pick up words you’d rather not hear them say.
In addition to being quick to learn new tricks and words, Blue Fronted Amazons love to climb, fly and chew. That means that along with making sure their cage provides them plenty of space and opportunity to climb, fly and chew, you will want to make sure when they’re out of the cage they have 100% supervision. Leave them alone and face the consequences! They’re not shy, they’re extremely curious and too intelligent for their own good and all of this, much like a precocious two-year-old child, leads to trouble when left to their own devices.
Playful and social by nature, they crave stimulation. To be a good companion for a Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot, you will want to make sure you have plenty of time each day to spend with them outside of their cage. This time can be spent playing, training, and just hanging out. They also love the water so a good shower often (3-7 times per week) is a good way to bond.
While in their cage, make sure they have plenty of toys to chew on, investigate, climb, and fly around. They’re smart birds so puzzle toys are great to keep their curious minds busy. It’s also important that they have an abundance of space to fly around. The larger the cage or aviary, the better. What do Blue Fronted Amazons eat? They love seeds and nuts but feeding an Amazon a diet based on seeds and nuts will literally kill them. They have too much fat and a diet like that will cause liver problems and even cancer. It’s like a diet based on cake and cookies for us. Save the seeds and nuts for training treats exclusively.
Instead, an organic pellet-based diet with plenty of fresh fruits and veggies each day will help keep them healthy and happy. While the Blue Fronted Amazon Parrot is known by many names, they are wonderful and unique and make amazing companions.
Blue-Fronted Amazon Diet
Providing your bird with a healthy and varied diet is the most important part of your job as a caregiver to a parrot. All other things that you do with your bird’s best interests at heart will be lost on a bird that doesn’t feel well or energized because of a poor diet.
The proper diet should consist largely of fresh foods (vegetables and fruits), and grains, and should be supplemented daily with a healthy, organic pellet. Be sure to have an unlimited supply of fresh, clean drinking water at all times.