Extreme fear/terror when toweling, etc.

My Hahn's macaw has an extreme fear of anything that resembles doctoring or beak/nail grooming. When we or the vet try to towel him to do anything like that, he is terrified! If we even come near him with a towel or a file he escapes quickly or gives an extreme fight. Normally he's very sweet and lets us handle him quite freely, but just not with a towel or the like. When we force him into being toweled, he avoids us for like an hour afterwards.

He has been to the avian vet three times (he's still very young), and each time afterwards he is shaking and seems traumatized. It's almost like he has PTSD from the visits. There was once he had to have a mini feather removed from under his eyelid that somehow got there. The vet wanted me to administer eye drops twice per day for two weeks. He HATED it! It got to the point where I had better luck putting them in his eye without the towel. It was if he thought I was trying to waterboard him when holding him in the towel.

I don't know if my Hahn's is just a very sensitive little bird. Though most toys don't scare him, there are a couple that terrify him. He gets most terrified by these miniature colored sneakers (much smaller than him). They are such cute little things, but he thinks they're the devil or something. Or my husband thinks he believes we're going to put them on his feet. We also have this green frog pinata. That's also a devil.

My old Pacific Parrotlet was about 50 times more courageous than my Hahn's macaw, who is much larger.

Can you handle him generally? Some birds you can just have them perch on someone's hand or leg and calmly lift them one at a time to trim or file.

So for towel desensitizing, try playing with him on your bed, with a large or extralarge towel spread open on it. At first just play with him and a ball or one of his toys, and then progressively use a smaller towel, and start to bring up the corners . This is going to be a gradual process, where you take 10 min each day (or nite) to do this, and it may take a few months of doing it to get him more comfortable being around towels. Try to use a neutral color towel, no prints, and if you can get it in bath, hand and then wahs cloth sizes all the same color, it will help. Its like most things parrots dont want to do, like putting a harness on, it just takes time on a regular basis to "train" the fear out of them.

And chuck those sneakers away! Salty loves them and would chew them to rags, except I wasn't seeing a lot of scrap rubber or sneaker material in the bottom of his cage and play area. Extremely cheaply made in China almost assures the materials going into these are not consumable grade anything.

Work in confidence building, and read about trust bonding. You can hang a thick safe rope from top if cage that hangs to the bottom, when they learn to climb it they feel very proud. Is he flighted? I think flighted burds have more confidence. Set up his perches so he can take a good size leap from one to next. Give some very easily shredded toys like cardboard, shredded paper. There are some articles out there about confidence building. I'm sure he does have a bit of trauma from going through all that do young, they're smart and sensitive, but with time he will get past that. He looks like a beautiful guy!

Thanks, everyone!



Mosaicmadness, he likes being handled. I can do almost anything to him except easily towel him or groom him. He'd let me put his head in my mouth, though I'd never do that. He's all over me most of the time.


wrench13, I'll give your suggestions a try. Thanks!


Laurasea, I don't think it's so much trust or bonding. My Bird Boy is very much bonded with me, and my husband. It's just the towel and grooming fear. I hope he does get past it as he gets older. He thanks you for the kind compliment!

Feel free to post more pics!!!!