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!