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Blue & Gold Macaw Help

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Blue & Gold Macaw Help

Postby Reevezie » Mon Aug 23, 2021 12:41 pm

Hello everyone, i have recently added a beautiful 2 year old blue and gold macaw to our family and i am hoping i can ask for some advice. I got her 5 days a go and everything has been fine, she seems to enjoy her new home so far. She has been taking treats by hand and playing with her new toys and is very talkative often initiating conversation herself so i thought she was settling well (although early days yet).
I decided to let her out for a couple of hours to stretch her wings she stepped up onto my hand no problem and went onto her cage, since going to the top of her cage she has been screaming ALOT. I understand Macaws scream and i am fine with it but wondered why she only does it when she is out of her cage? She also gets abit nippy when she is out too! Have i let her out too soon or is she just testing me? Should i have put her onto another perch / play tree instead of letting her get onto her cage? Any help / advice would be appreciated
Reevezie
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 2
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: Blue & Gold Macaw
Flight: No

Re: Blue & Gold Macaw Help

Postby Pajarita » Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:43 am

Hi, Reeve and B&G, welcome to the forum (you did not tell us her name and how you know it's a female). OK, you need to take a couple of things into consideration:
1) you are dealing with a baby (macaws do not mature until they are 4 years old)
2) she has only been with you for five measly days - for a parrot, that is our equivalent of 10 minutes of getting to know somebody.
3) where does she come from - did she come from the breeder or from another home? Because her previous experience in a human home is VERY relevant to her current behavior. Bad experience = bird with issues.

Now, leaving all that aside and if we were talking about a well-adjusted adult, macaws scream - they all do, and they are all loud. So the question is not why she screams but when and what is happening at the time. For example, if she screams early in the am and late in the evening, this is perfectly normal. These screams are actually flock calls during feeding time. And, if she screams before you put her breakfast or dinner out, it means she is hungry (remember, this is still a baby and needs food constantly but not just dried-up adult food (like pellets) but lots of fresh produce and some soft food. If you have the radio on loud, she will scream over the background noise.

I doubt it's the fact that she screams because she is on top of her cage... Where they perch doesn't really make a difference unless she is in a spot that feels precarious to her and feels insecure (is she clipped or was she clipped during her infancy preventing her from learning how to fly?).

Is she alone a lot? Babies get very anxious when alone and, if she is 'connecting' her going on top of her cage with your leaving soon after, she might scream - but this is unlikely with only 5 days in your home.

I would not worry about her screaming at all but I would also not put my hand inside her cage to take her out, I would just open the door to the cage and let her decide if and when she comes out and where she wants to go. People tend to be too controlling with parrots not realizing that these are super intelligent animals that do not need us to think or make decisions for them. And they don't like it. Parrots think the same way that humans do and not like many other animals. For other animals, they can make a decision only if the situation is identical or almost identical to something they already know but parrots have complex cognitive skills that allow them to take information that is, apparently, not related to each other and from different sources and not only find the constant amongst all of them but also make a conclusion.

My advice to you is re-evaluate your husbandry and observe when she screams and what is happening -EXACTLY- around her. And don't expect too much too soon because you will only be disappointed and delay trust building between you two. Give her time, feed her right, keep her at a strict solar schedule, let her out every day for, at least, 6 to 8 hours a day and spend all these hours with her (again, this is a baby and needs constant company, in the wild, this bird would still be with her parents). Talk to her, sing, whistle, dance for her and every now and then offer her a treat but, if she doesn't take it, don't worry and just leave it where she can reach it. And let her make her own decisions and to set the pace she wants to follow with her relationship to you.

Please let us know if you have any other question or doubt.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: Blue & Gold Macaw Help

Postby Reevezie » Tue Aug 24, 2021 4:50 pm

Hi Pajarita thank you very much for your reply, Rio came from a breeder who advised me she is a female. Both me and my wife work from home so there is always someone in the house with her, we always talk to her (she usually replies) and encourage her to play with her toys and she seems happy to do so. I understand completely that Macaws scream, its part of having a Macaw but she goes from being calm and talkative inside her cage to excessive screaming once she gets out on top of her cage, thats what prompted me to ask. She is always quiet in the mornings and gets a little loud late evening which I understand is normal. If she goes on a separate perch she doesn’t scream but as soon as she gets on top of her cage she starts to scream thats what i found strange. I did start by just opening the cage as you suggested as I didn’t want to take her out myself but that resulted in her climbing to the top of her cage so the next time she came out i put her on a perch and she was fine until it was time to go back in, sometimes she gets nippy when i try to put her back in and i’m not really sure how i can get around this as i want her to be out every day. She is clipped at the moment (not something i did) which makes things tricky when trying to get her back in the cage as i’m not sure how i can do this without her stepping up for me and potentially nipping.
Reevezie
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is male
Posts: 2
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: Blue & Gold Macaw
Flight: No

Re: Blue & Gold Macaw Help

Postby Pajarita » Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:10 am

Well, clipped birds feel terribly insecure and that makes them scream more than flighted birds (a bird that does not feel comfortable in a given situation can take off but a clipped bird has no choice but to remain and that causes stress which, in a baby, will prompt calls for help). Is the cage the kind that has a dome top or a flat one? I find that birds hugely prefer the kind with the flat top.

As to her biting if you ask her to step up to your hand... well, well-raised babies never bite and it's not only because they are well-raised but also because they are babies. Prey animals are not born with an aggression gene, they need to learn to be aggressive and it's always people who teach them so, unless she was not properly socialized by the breeder, she should not even try to bluff a bite (macaws are big bluffers). BUT, if you don't feel 100% safe using your hand, use a stick.

People always talk about their birds biting or nipping when their owners ask them to step up but, in my personal experience and opinion, this happens because 95% of the time the birds do not spend enough time out-of-cage and the owners ask them to step up just to put them back in their cages - which they do NOT like (and who can blame them?). Parrots are VERY intelligent and put two and two together... Do you play with her? Do you allow her to ride your shoulder while you do things around the house? Does she have a box on the floor where there are a lot of toys and chewies for her to riffle through? They don't have to be parrot toys, you can put all sorts of 'attractive' things in there... little cardboard boxes, crumpled up paper, medallions of dried yucca, pieces of untreated pine 2x4, balls of different sizes, big knots of untreated sisal rope, coconut shells (wash them thoroughly first), natural pine cones, etc. You need to put, at the very least, 4 hours of one-on-one and, although that does not mean you need to spend 4 hours paying attention to her and nothing else, it does mean 2 hours of that (you can sit on the floor and take things out of the box for her to look at and study, you can dance with her, you can play a game of 'find the ball' only make it a nut under the cup, play with an interactive baby toy -like the ones that have music or animal sounds or the ones that look like an abacus with beads running on thick wires, etc.) and another 2 of doing your thing but with her on your arm or shoulder or right next to you so you can interact with her. Baby parrots (and adults, too) require an inordinate amount of time spent with them and a lot of work and thought put into it. If dogs are a 3 in a scale of 1 to 10 maintenance requirements and cats are a 1, adult parrots, especially the large species, are a solid 10 because they are super high maintenance in terms of human effort and require 6 hours every single day of their lives of attention, interaction and direct supervision. So prepare yourself for the next 60 years of slavery to a parrot :lol:
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes


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