Macaws ..... When to take the Plunge?

My wife and have been married for over 26 years now. We have a daughter tha is 22 years old and son that is 15 years old. We have always been BIG pet lovers; dogs, cats, reptiles, fish and oh yeh .... BIRDS!

My wife and I had birds (finches & a conure) the first couple of years we were married then along came the careers and kids. As we're now approaching our 50's life has started to slow down a bit with the kids getting older. The last Several years my wife and I have gotten back into our shared love for the hobby of keeping birds. We currently have 7 species of Finches, a Cockatiel, a Parrotlet, a Sun Conure, a Sengal Parrot and a Goffin Cockatoo ... all totalling 50 birds. I've been successful at breeding Zebra Finches, Gouldian Finches, & Java Rice Finches. NO, we're NOT bird hoarders, we just really love AND take care of our birds.

Our long term goal in this hobby is to some day own a Macaw. We are thinking about either a Gold & Blue or a Green-Wing Macaw. The number one thing we want in a Macaw is a good tempermant. I'm a believer that if you want this in any bird time and patiences is the key to success. I think with the many years we have as "bird keepers" we can do this, that is .... keeping a Macaw. My biggest and only reservation is, "Are we ready to handle and keep such a BIG bird?". The biggest bird in our flock is our Goffin 'Too. I guess in some ways, the bottom line is the "Beak & Power Factor" that has guessing if we're really ready for this or not. We know from many years of expereince that birds are messy, require lots of time and social interaction, expense for "quality" food, work, patience, etc....

So the question is, ..... how does one know when you're ready to take the Macaw plunge?

Any words of wisdom, opinions, ideas, etc ... would be greatly appreciated.

PS - We do have one Bird Rescue less than an hour away from our home. I was thinking of maybe contacting the owner and offer them to give them a helping hand some weekend so that we can help them out, but also enable us to be around the Macaws all day and interact to see how it goes. Hopefully that shed some light for us???

Hi, and welcome to the Forum.

The way you describe your family, situation, etc. I think you are QUITE ready for a BIG MAC. Imagine everything - just supersized.

Volunteering at a nearby rescue is a great idea. If you have any nearby stores and/or breeders, you could also visit them.

I'm going to be brutally honest: Before Niko came to live with us, I was somewhat scared of Macaws. Their big beaks intimidated me. Even though I had the opportunity to bring home older Macs, I opted for a newly weaned one, and I never regretted this decision.

Now, 3+ years later, I am no longer intimidated by the beak(s).

In fact, I brought home a GW 2 weeks ago, and Ripley is no baby, he's 19 months, and a bundle of joy to boot.

we took the plunge 3 years ago when our youngest left for college, Remington was the first bird we owned~ he was 13 when we got him and was owned by the same family since he was hatched. We chose to go the older bird route, he had already gone through "puberty" and because I know the previous owners we were able to get a lot of information about him. Yes the beak is intimidating, but you will learn their body language quickly!

Thanks folks.

What are yout thoughts on taking in a Rescue older macaw over a baby handfed macaw.

I have bought both handfed and rescue older birds in hookbills and have had good success so far, but not sure about Macaws especially for the first one.

If you can get over the fear of getting bitten Macaws are wonderful to have. Plus, with all of your experience with other species of birds that is really the only thing that would be holding you back. If you are ready to give a big bird a forever home a rescue bird would be a wonderful way to go. My Coby was almost four when I got him and he had been severely neglected. The guy I got him from said that he had gotten Coby right after he was weaned. Coby was cage aggressive, people aggressive, didn't know how to step up or how to act in an appropriate manner with people at all. Three years later he is a wonderful sweet boy that I couldn't imagine my life without. There is nothing in this world that would ever get me to give him up. It is so very rewarding having a macaw and is well worth the potentially rough road if you decide to adopt an older bird.

My moms B&G was 9 when she got him and used to be a old breeder and hated people. Was at the store for over a year and never was able to be picked up anyone. But then we started going to the store because we wanted to get a bird. We have had cockatiels but we were ready to step up to a parrot. My mom walked in and she went to Austin and she instantly picked him up and started cuddling with him shocking the workers at the store. She made a deal with the owner and took him home. He hated me but I worked with him everyday for hours and now he comes to me and stays with me on the couch and let's me kisses. It just all depends on the bird and situation. If your putting him in a better home than he was he will surely eventually I hope like you too.

Hey, welcome to the forum. I am one of those odd folks I guess you could call me who never once thought twice about being afraid of the macaw beak. Or you could call me just plain stupid for not thinking sensible.:11:

Anyway, I wanted a macaw for many yrs, but could not afford one back when I had parrots the first time a lot of yrs. ago. Life situations warranted me to find a great home through a mutual friend for all my birds then.

Fast forward to last year & hubby mentioned we should get a larger parrot again. Wrong thing to say to me. I went looking for my dream bird which was to be a Green Wing macaw, I settled for two brother hybrid Catalina macaws. One was 5 months old & one was 9 months old and I have loved every minute of having them in my life.

I am finally getting my GW in a month or two when she is ready to fly home to me from her breeder. I chose handfed babies due to my work schedule. I felt like it would be easier for me to get babies used to my schedule than older ones that might need a good bit of work before settling in. I had adult re-homed birds with my first ones in the 90s, so I have been through that also. If I didn't have to work, I would have no problem working with rescues again.

Good luck & I too think you sound like you are a good candidate for your first macaw. They are awesome birds, and I am not young either & I adore interacting with mine!

So if I understood correctly, you currently have 50 birds? I have no issues with that as my breeder has around 200. But she only has about 8 that are "pets" and live in her house as opposed to the aviary. A Macaw (as well as a Too and others) require a lot of social interaction to be "pets" in a household and interact in a positive manner with you. I guess I'm looking for a little more clarification before answering. No disrespect at all intended!

WeimerHeimer said:

We currently have 7 species of Finches, a Cockatiel, a Parrotlet, a Sun Conure, a Sengal Parrot and a Goffin Cockatoo ... all totalling 50 birds.

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Wharfrat, sounds like majority of them (45 of them) are finches...

WharfRat said:

So if I understood correctly, you currently have 50 birds? I have no issues with that as my breeder has around 200. But she only has about 8 that are "pets" and live in her house as opposed to the aviary. A Macaw (as well as a Too and others) require a lot of social interaction to be "pets" in a household and interact in a positive manner with you. I guess I'm looking for a little more clarification before answering. No disrespect at all intended!

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No problem wharfrat. I thinks its good you called me on the carpet about the number of birds I have. Too many people are animal hoarders and it happens not only in birds, but cats, birds, reptiles, etc...

So, with that being said ...... Without too much personal details of my private life, my wife is in the "medical field" and myself in the "environmental engineering field". Lets just say that I'm "financially set" and live a moderate life style that I've been so blessed to have from working really hard the first 25 years of our careers. In fact, I no longer have to work the grueling 50-60 hours per week I once did. Actually, I only work 32 hours per week, and enjoy the spare time that most folks don't have for their hobbies of bird keeping and their family.

As stated earlier, a large bulk of my flock are Finches and are by no means as difficult to keep and maintain as larger hookbills.

So, I hope I pass yours, and others, approval on here that I'm a "responsible" person. If I figure out how to take videos, post them on youtube, and link them to here I will gladly do so to show you and anyone else openly what my flock looks like, their cages, etc... Currently we have ALL our cages in our rec room, which is our main living activity area of the house so "interaction", even with the finches, is utmost priority. My wife and I are looking intoremoving the wall between our rec room and formal living room to make one BIG great room. This would help spread things out a bit more and offer more natural sun light for the room.

Hope that clears the air for everyone. Sorry I didn't elaborate more of my personal life and situation, just never thought it was necessary for the topic at hand.

All is good. My main point I was ready to make was this, you absolutely must "socialize" with a Macaw on a regular (daily) basis with them to have a good/great relationship. Not doing so would result in a bad situation for the bird and you. (I'll let 10 of your finches "bite" me if you take just one bite from one of my Green Wings or even my Hahn's) I have 2 Green Wings and one of them has jealousy issues (entirely my fault and accept all blame for it!) But I am working thru that with some success thankfully. Macaws are absolutely AWESOME creatures that are capable of showing much love, loyalty, kindness and affection (as are all feathered friends we have) I honestly have absolutely no experience with finches at all so I can only speak of what I know. If you pour your heart and soul into a Macaw (or others, trying to be "politically correct" here) your rewards are tenfold. My wife has her Zons and I have the GW's, didn't plan it that way, but that's how it is. We hand raised (weaned) 4 of our 5 birds and rec'd excellent training/knowledge from our breeder as well. I along with everyone else here will help you all we can.