Any experienced macaw owners out there with advice for me?

Please see my plea for help on the behavioral board, thanks!

http://www.parrotforums.com/behavioral/26478-help-please.html

Retro21: I read your thread and your bird's behavior sounds very hormonal to me. Some females seem to have a stronger brooding instinct than others.

I have not owned female Macaws, so I'm probably not the best one to address your concerns. I do however own a male Military - I've had him for 30 years - who's been a bit of a behavioral nightmare. He bonded with my Blue & Gold when I got him and that bond remained strong for 24 years. Suddenly, when I added a 3rd Macaw to the flock, my Military decided he wanted to kill my Blue & Gold and seriously attempted to do so. Needless to say, from that point forward I had to keep the two separated. My poor Blue & Gold still tries to go to my Military whenever he spots a chance. This has resulted in some dangerous attacks upon my Blue & Gold, as well as a few severe bites (usually to his feet).

My Military will easily switch to mating behavior if he has access to certain toys. The worst triggers are soft, stuffed ones or frayed pieces of rope. He actually goes through mating rituals with such toys and becomes quite cage-aggressive. The simple solution, in his case, is to confiscate the trigger toys from him. Doing so has always resulted in him reverting to normal behavior, and quite quickly. Well, "normal" for Maynard, that is - which still includes wishing to murder my Blue & Gold.

I kind of doubt that much of the above will be very helpful to your situation. The only thing it may bolster is testing a sustained removal of certain toys, and perhaps a trial rearrangement and/or relocation of your bird's cage. There's of course no guarantee that doing so will quash her obviously intense hormonal surges and the resulting behaviors.

Perhaps others with more on-point experience and better ideas will reply here soon.

I really don't have any advice for you at this point. I do find it strange that it is happening just now at that age. To use the aforementioned term, something had to of "triggered" this change in behavior, even if it was the rubber ball that started it. I have 2 female GW's but they're still very young yet, although I do deal with one that is much harder to handle than the other. (I completely think it's a jealousy issue). She is slowly getting better in working with her, honestly, in just the last 2 days I've seen a noticeable improvement.

My breeder has a B&G that is absolutely mean as ^&*% and it has always been that way, it is one of her "pets" and not a breeder and lives in her house, not the aviary. In other words it was never let loose either. Every time I visited I made a point to talk to that bird and try to make friends with him. Just before we moved away, he finally let me pet him thru the cage, the breeder's jaw about hit the floor and when her husband came home she told him about it as well, he turned and gave me the strangest look. What I'm trying to say is don't give up, persevere and I'm sure you'll win her back.
I haven't talked to her lately but when I do I'll ask her about this, she is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to Macaws (& Zons)

One other thing you might want to try is to lessen the amount of daylight she is exposed to. If she's mainly exposed to artificial light lessen the amount of time with that light also. Birds sex drive is determined by the amount of light they receive, i.e. more daylight means mating season is here. Also rearrange her cage and remove anything she might think is nesting material.

I don't have any experience with brooding females either. And my two macaws are young males. I have read on another forum about a member having a female B&G go into nesting in the corner of her cage & was sitting on nothing. The bird thought she had eggs & her owner let her finish her nesting to get it out of her system as she put it. Once her B&G was through with the nest which was shredded newspapers, she destroyed it herself. She was very protective of the nest & cage til she was finished. I can't say if that is the normal thing to do, but it seems that if a female gets it in her head to nest, it is not going to stop just by taking the nest or presumed eggs away.

I have read that lighting is very important in controlling hormonal behavior to a certain degree in both males & females. So, hopefully you can find a solution & maybe your vet. as it was suggested can help you understand what to do to help discourage her behavior.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm am going to call the vet tomorrow and see if there is anything he suggests to help, some mentioned hormone therapy, we'll see what he says about that. We have been adding extra sleep time, we'll continue to do that.

Looking forward to getting to know you all and your birds.

Cami said:

Hello, I have a male B&G who will be 10 this May. In having a male, when he entered his hormone/sexual maturation stage at age 6, it started literally overnight with eye pinning and screaming like a banshee like I've never experienced before.

His behavior went from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde in a blink, no triggers whatsoever! Very extremely aggressive towards me, lunging at me. When he lunged at my temple unexpectedly, I was stunned and scared how close he missed my eye, he was even running towards me, chasing me aggressively. He bit numerous times, lots of pain and blood, and the scars remain.

I've discussed this with my avian vet, and he suggested to use a few drops of Benadryl, cooled chamomile tea in place of water, or valerian root...nothing made an impact in calming him. The only thing that worked was a spray bottle.

This was the only way that I could have any type of control. The spray bottle had a forceful stream. (he takes baths/showers in the bathroom so I wasn't associating his bad/aggressive behavior with cleaning himself, being afraid of or playing in the water).

If he was out of his cage playing or just sitting somewhere, in the flip of a switch he'd change, his behavior suddenly became aggressive and dangerous, I would shoot him in the belly/chest area one time with a stream of water to get him to snap out of it long enough to get him in his cage without me suffering losing a finger or any more blood and pain.

As he has gotten older, I've learned to recognize his body language. When he is going into an aggressive stage, he entire body shakes instead of the eye pinning and his feathers on head stand straight up (like the evil gremlin from the movie). I try to gage how bad an episode will be.

Sometimes I'll just leave him alone and it will pass, and other times if I feel that it will be safer for him(and me), I have to get the spray bottle out and get him in his cage asap, but that is only in the worst circumstances. He has these episodes that extend off and on for 3 weeks at a time, and I'll keep him in the cage for days at a time when it's at the highpoint.

Other behavior, he will go into the bathroom for hours, (a guy needs his quiet time) close the door and he finds a way to grab the toilet paper and unroll it all into a pile and act like he is nesting and shredding the pile until he's done. He does this with dish towels too.

I don't know if this answered your concern, but these are the experiences that I've encountered. He first two years in this stage were the worst. He can be very aggressive, but he's nothing like the beginning. I'd welcome any positive feedback as well. At the time there wasn't a lot on the hormone topic, so I literally played in by common sense and hoped for the best. It broke my heart to see him change like this.

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Thanks for sharing your experience! I hope this doesn't become an ongoing problem. I miss my snuggles and my sweet little girl. We have used the squirt bottle in the past when she has become tried to become "amorous" with us. It works, we only need to hold up the squirt bottle and she stops.

these are the stories i have been searching for, and what to do in these situations. going to be a first time macaw owner in the near future i just wonder how other owners dealt with these situations. now don't take me the wrong way here when i say and ask this. but some people believe that the squirty bottle method is abusive. i think there are worse things out there one self could do to a bird so i don't think it to be abusive. but what if that method doesn't work and they realize it's just water and your plan back fires. when they act up and get a squirt, they might think of it as a like going for a swim, so then in turn they are turning a punishment into a reward. the bird breeder i had in the past , i got my ekkies from once told me to give them a time out box and put that over them, were everybody was so they could hear what was going on in the room, but couldn't see what was going on. i thought this was rather cruel and unusual treatment, but the breeder said to try it. so i tried it and it never worked. they figured out they can lift the box and get out. so i just did things my way, and when ever they acted up, i put them back on their cages or in their cages for 5 min's. then let them back out. if they kept it up then the min went up , like time out when i was a kid. if i was bad i had to sit on a couch or a chair and wait till my parents told me i could get up. this worked alot better for me. not saying this will work all the time, i think you just gotta find what solution works the best for each individual.

When I brought Spencer home in August 2003, I did research on what to feed him, and what not to feed him, toys, playtime, cage size etc. There was nothing about hormones/maturation and their reactions from it, and in retrospect, that was very sad that there was no communication about this.

Had I been able to read up on this topic, it would have set the expectation for me to have knowledge. It still would have been a surprise because it took six years for him to reach maturation from my inception with him, however I would have realized that "oh this was a natural part of a parrots life" and I'll conform to make it a better experience as opposed to being broadsided and on the defensive wondering what the heck happened to my sweet lil boy.

I respect Spencer enough to walk away and nurse my wounds after he lunges and breaks the skin. The spray bottle is the only form of discipline I use that worked to break him from his trance. Now I only have to pick up the bottle and show him and he gets that message. Don't get me wrong, anyone that owns parrots, knows pain big time. I don't ever want to be in a position where he would be hurt by any reactive measure on my part.

You are absolutely right, there needs to be more stories about this. Each bird is different how they may act. The more you know, the more you'll have compassion and understanding for your baby.

plax said:

Retro21: ...... Suddenly, when I added a 3rd Macaw to the flock, my Military decided he wanted to kill my Blue & Gold and seriously attempted to do so. Needless to say, from that point forward I had to keep the two separated. My poor Blue & Gold still tries to go to my Military whenever he spots a chance. This has resulted in some dangerous attacks upon my Blue & Gold, as well as a few severe bites (usually to his feet).....

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:11::11::11:

Wow that is an eye opener! and I realize I have a similar setup with my three. Doogie my 19 year old Catalina wants to be an old hermit and is very nesty. He has a group of towels made into a nest at the bottom of his cage and spends a good deal of his time just down in there. Clifford the Scarlet is now 9 years old and at first would cow down to the aggressive control Doogie sought to maintain. As Clifford grew older and stronger he would occasionally test Doogie's authority until a big bad fight came along and Clifford got his foot badly bit. After a very expensive trip to the vets (foot was not broken but he didn't use it for two weeks) i decided we would not go through this ever again. Doogie can be out with Kayko or Clifford can be out with Kayko my B&G, but no more Doogie with Clifford as it would be instant fight. Kayko is unusually submissive even to the point of being stupid, but he and Clifford do preen each other and generally get along with few squabbles. I wondered Plax why you never mentioned your Military. One guy I occasionally meet in parks; Vernon Williams, when out with the birds has a female Military named Annie. Vern wears this big leather glove she and beak spikes his hand all the time. Reluctantly I attempted to get him on my hand with no protection fearing the worst BUT SHE WILL NOT BITE AT STRANGERS, ONLY HIM! That certainly is a flip on macaw behavioral patterns!!!! My boy Clifford certainly knows that that is a female and spreads his wings and eye pins in her presence. He KNOWS that is a female somehow. My birds are very predictable in exactly what they will do in any given situation EXCEPT when Clifford is in the presence of that female macaw; then all bets are off. Once backing away from her Cliff really chomped down on my hand as he wanted to stay in her presence. Hormones rule!!!

Alwese said:

Wow that is an eye opener! and I realize I have a similar setup with my three...As Clifford grew older and stronger he would occasionally test Doogie's authority until a big bad fight came along and Clifford got his foot badly bit.

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Yes, when that kind of a situation exists it's best to be diligently proactive.

Alwese said:

I wondered Plax why you never mentioned your Military.

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Actually I have. I even posted a couple of videos showing him and Salsa interacting together. Here are some links to a couple of posts within which I've discussed Maynard:

http://www.parrotforums.com/macaws/23722-your-macaws-age-how-many-m-f-how-long-2.html#post194894

http://www.parrotforums.com/macaws/25372-when-maynard-screams-2.html#post210202

Oh my the hormone talk again....I posted on the macaw hormone change about a year ago I think....when Willie turned 10 years old he became super aggressive and draw blood. He shreds papers too but he mated with his toy as we witnessed him humping it so he's a boy for sure. He completely caught me off guard when he bit down on my finger pretty deep that took awhile to stop the bleeding. I just let him be when he's going through his cycle once he's out of it he is safe to hold once again.

Mikey,...probably a stupid question, but how long does Willie's "cycle" usually last?

I am SO not looking forward to this.

I'm not really worried about ReaRea but I ain't lookin forward to Miri being hormonal at all

JerseyWendy said:

Mikey,...probably a stupid question, but how long does Willie's "cycle" usually last?

I am SO not looking forward to this.

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He always had a minor one even before 10 years old but they never last long but on his 10th year he went full on and it lasted for a lot longer then expected. IF I remembered correctly it lasted for almost 2 months. This time he's not as bad as he is 11 years old now and he'll be 12 in May. It starts during winter time around October through December. After the last incident I just learned to back off and let him be until his cycle is over. When your bird peeled your skin back like banana peel and left you a big scar, you learn to back off. That is the second time he's ever bitten me, the first time was my fault when he was around 3 years old. I held his foot and won't let go cause he was trying to take off from a gust of wind when the door was open and he bit me real good because of it, but at least he didn't fly off cause he was too busy biting my hand that was holding on to his foot. I brought him in and shut the door, I let go his foot and he let me go instantly. It wasn't a deep bite as it did not left me a scar, but I did lose a layer of skin that healed up nicely. But the hormone bite did as he meant business....He's only flew 4 times since we've had him, all 4 times he flew towards me. Last time he flew to me was during this summer. He knows I love him and I will protect him with whatever I've got, I think the dogs got on his nerves licking his tail feathers and he flew to me. But when it comes to hormones, he goes straight to the dogs, one in particular, Rocco the white husky. He wants nothing to do with me during that period as he rather feed Rocco, but he NEVER hurts any of the dogs and the dogs loves him cause they know who feeds them treats. So you see when hormone hits, it does NOT matter your their care giver, IF they seek a mate other then you, you are their enemy. Willie came to me when he was 2 years old as he chose me while I went to see him at his previous home. He step up to my arms within seconds of me getting into the house. The owners warned me that he is not friendly towards strangers and when Willie step up for me, their jaws dropped....That's when they said I need to take him cause they've never seen him do that with anyone else. The lady handfed him herself as she was the only one that could handle him before me. In my house, no friends that comes over can hold him, not even my partner since day one. That's been 9 years ago.

Spencer was 5 yrs and 11 months in April 2009 when he entered into it. It was Spring, doors and windows open, plus Sun shines all day here. The first time he bit me, he grabbed my arm, and his beak countersunk into my flesh like a knife thru cream cheese.

The first time, and the worst time I might add, lasted several months, he remained in the cage. It has gotten a bit easier as time goes on and once I can recogized his body language, I either stay away and let it pass or just conform to each individual situation when its presented. It can be summer or winter when he's 'in the mood'