New Military Macaw owner

[BrianH]

Hello my name is Brian, I live in Georgia with my 4 daughters, yorkie and our new member of our home Max! We are not struggling or having problems with her in our home. I am new to owning a large bird, I have been around them and taken care of them before. I just drove up to IL to pick her up and bring her back to GA Last weekend.

Max is our new family member. She is a beautiful 30 year old Military Macaw. She came from the home of an elderly couple I have known since high school. She has been neglected attention, which her owners have no problem saying, but they are both 79 and it was just hard for them. They did things I think they were told to do 30 years ago by the breeder, and never changed much of anything for her.

I did make one change in her cage right away, she was giving a large steel ring that she used for her main perch. It was only about a 1/4” around. This could not be good on her feet. I removed it and put a large perch across her cage at the same height that ring was.

Max is a very quiet, and maybe a little thin. I cannot get her to eat any fresh veggies, or fruit. She has only eaten a fresh orange slice because that is what she was offered before. She is/was feed “Exact Natural parrot and conure food”. Today I receive Tops Parrot food Large, which is cold pressed preserving a lot of nutrition. My next step with food is working with her to eat fresh veggies/fruit 80/20 in the morning and then Tops in the evening.

She is a gentle, she give plenty of warning if she doesn’t want to do something. In a few min she learned to target train. And then to move across her large Tstand to target. She will not move from one side of the Cage to the other to target. She now steps up so much easier after the target training, and comes out of the cage so much easier.

I’m hoping this is a good place for questions and answers!

[Pajarita]

Hi, Brian, Maxie and family, welcome to the forum. And, yes, this is a very good place to learn... at least, I think so.

Thank you for taking her in and making the effort to improve her life. I have only a couple of suggestions for you.

First thing you need to do is take her to an avian vet ASAP and ask for a bile acid test as well as the usual CBC and chem panel because I bet you a dollar against a penny that she already has liver and kidney damage (with 30 years of bad diet, there is no chance she is healthy). Why ASAP? Because you will have to give her a special diet with supplements so, if you are changing her diet, it will be easier for her and you to start her off with the right one. She is 'quiet' because she is weak and doesn't feel well.

Keep her to a strict solar schedule with two full hours of dawn and dusk -I seriously doubt her previous owners knew anything about avian photoperiodism (see links below)- because the endocrine system covers much more than breeding, it also affects mood, sleep and eating patterns, immune system , etc.

Now, if I had taken in this bird, I would put her on gloop and raw fruits in the am and walnuts for dinner. Tops are the best pellets but they have a max moisture way too low for a parrot (their natural diet has 85 to 95% moisture and Tops has a max of 10.3% - BIG difference) and with kidney and liver issues, you need to keep her super hydrated. Now, you might think that the bird will simply drink more water but they don't because A) as prey animals, they are crepuscular feeders and will hardly ever drink during the day, and B) they seem to be 'programmed' to drink a certain number of sips every time (my macaw takes 7 or 8 sips and only at dawn). And walnuts only because they have the best omegas ratio of all the nuts and, with 30 years of bad diet, she needs all the Omega 3 she can get (she most likely has high cholesterol, too).

I would also put her on supplements to cleanse and tonic: dandelion root, milk thistle, methionine, aloe vera juice from the inner leaf and apple cider with the mother. Some you use every day, some you alternate, some you put in her water, some in her soft food and some in both.

Let me know if you have questions or doubts.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 8014002329

https://academic.oup.com/book/9558/chap ... m=fulltext

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 1129002079

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jez.2604

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24929229/

https://www.performancelab.com/blogs/im ... 0functions.