Getting a Macaw, ready or not! Please Help

I've posted this on another forum, Looking for the most active one!

My parents are about to make a down payment for a B&G and I'm not sure how much research they have done so I thought I would help them out for the bird.

I have an exotic reptile and one of the first things I learned was to become part of an online community because there are so many people with mountains of information on forums willing to help and inform.

So hello, I'm new to the forum, located in western PA, and would love to be pointed in the proper direction on the basics of owning a baby B&G and we'll go from there.

I look forward to becoming an active and enlightened member of this forum.

PS. Buying from a breeder through a pet-store for ~1,500. The bird is 6.5 weeks old and the pet-store offered to monitor it for a week and hand feed it and show us how. They offered to let us take it now if we want to try to hand feed ourselves.

Look up the forum thread titled: So, you want to get a parrot for the first time? You will find it under general parrot information. Please have your parents read the messages there. It points out all the negative things one can run into with owning a bird which are not usually talked about.

Haha sorry, I should have mentioned we had a cockatoo for a long time. So we arent new to parrots in general I just thought that Macaws were more exotic and came with different guidelines. Although the not using Teflon was news to me.

Also we got the cockatoo as an adult so baby parrot information would be great.

Thanks for the swift response.

we've got a number of Macaw owners, and people with experience hand-rearing babies, unfortunately I'm not one of them. I have a lovely second-hand adult Alexandrine... Hopefully if we keep this thread active those who are able to give you the info you seek will notice it and chime in!

Hey welcome well I'm the owner of blue and gold he's 9 months now I got him at 17 weeks from breeder. He is my first macaw and I have to say I've had no major problems. Just make sure u have a big cage bigger the better and be prepared for a very demanding bird ours has to have a lot of hours each day for affection and play time. They are big chewers aswell so be prepared for some of that. They are beautiful animals and very smart I also have Greenwing coming when it hatchs.

Like Patterson already mentioned... they are big time chewers, very demanding birds with very loud scream!!! I've had mine for 7 years, wouldn't trade him for anything else. Make sure you get the proper cage for macaws, they're destructive if you don't have the right cage, he'll have it ripped apart in no time.

Thanks for the replies! My parents were worried the cage would be too big for a 8 week old. Am I to assume that wouldn't be a problem?

As long as he can't get his head stuck between the bars, he should be okay. Hand-feeding is tough and personally, I'd leave it to the breeder/pet store but please go spend time with him to help the bonding process start.

Congratulations!

Yea have to say I find it better letting the breeder handrear. When u get ur bird few days he will start bonding with u anyhow. I would be weary handcrafting a macaw if I hadn't done it before

Depends on the bird, sometimes they wont bond with you as much when you hand rear them. I've had quite a few like that. Only a few that I've hand reared that was very close to me. All the babies have ever known was me since they open their eyes from day one so I suppose they want to see someone else...lol....they're not mean to me but rather go to someone else since they can fly.... few that was close to me behaved extremely well and don't ever leave my site.... this is reminding me of how much joy it was to watch them grow...

Please make sure before you purchase a Macaw that they are fully weaned, this is not for a beginer. I purchased my GW macaw who was at the time fully weaned, after getting him home, I noticed that his food bowls were full of food that was untouched. I took my GW to my Avairy Vet who advised me that sometimes Macaw babies can regress and need to be hand fed. After a week of my Vet tube feeding my Macaw and $800.00 later, i ended up taking my Macaw back to my Breeder for another 2 weeks so she can wean him again. After the 2nd time, I picked him up and have not had an issue since. It's been 1 1/2 years now. Don't make this mistake. Make sure that your new macaw gets atleast 12 hours of sleep each night. Keep them in a dark safe and free from drafts. When they are awake, spend lots of time with them. Teach them what presure is allowed when they want to bite or hold onto your hand and fingers, this is important as they grow. macaws can do a lot of damage to your hands and fingers if not properly trained. Best of luck to you with your new B&G. Joe

One has to be very careful to put a thermometer in the formula so that the baby does not get crop burn. If one microwaves formula it can form hot spots that you may miss with your finger testing the temp. You would best buy a book on hand feeding parrots. I did this before I hand fed my moluccan cockatoo starting at about 11 weeks.
When the baby is young it will be on feedings more often with a higher water content, and when it gets older it will have less water. I would feed my baby until her crop was gently rounded but still soft (not so full that it was tight and over filled). I would let it get flat and nearly empty before I would feed him again. Also, don't store any mixed up formula as the bacteria content gets too high even if stored in the fridge for a few hours.

In most bird people's opinion it is not wise to buy an unweaned bird because too much can go wrong. The baby could get dehydrated or have crop stasis or an infection and you would not know it if you were not used to working with hand feeding baby parrots. You could get the food down the wrong hole and get feeding into its airway. If you must hand feed yourself get a book on hand feeding. I read a good one by Howard Veron, can't remember the exact name of the book but think it was something like Hand Feeding and Nursery Management. I was lucky that the breeder taught me how to tube feed this baby the right way and I had the book and am a human nurse. I had hand feed my yellow naped amazan (got her almost weaned), with a baby spoon and it was a big mess.

Here in Houston you can get a fully weened Blue and Gold for the price that you are being offered. Why don't you call up some breeders in your state from Bird Talk magazine and see if they can get you a fully weened one for the same price. Got my new baby Harlequin macaw 2 weeks ago and she is 8 months old and suppose to be fully weaned. For the first week I thought she would starve because she would shell big nuts and not eat the inside nut, and chew up her food and not swallow much. Her droppings for that first week were very small and not enough. I think this was a type of weaning regression. She would do that little bird begging sound that I had heard before with other baby parrots. After the first week I was afraid that she would starve and I got her some formula. I fed her some with a spoon and after that one try she decided that she didn't want that anymore and now she is learning to eat the inside of nuts, pellets, apple, green beans etc. and is pooping enough like a regular big parrot. I cannot believe that I finally can be a member of the macaw owners club after only having amazons and cockatoos for the last 18 years. I have been saying for the last 5 years that I wanted a macaw but that Shasta our moluccan cockatoo male would not let us have one. Finally after seeing a macaw while on vacation in Jamaica last month I asked my husband and he finally agreed. I had always thought that macaws beaks were too big and scary, and that the birds were high strung and bite a lot.
After being bitten so many times on purpose by our male moluccan over the years I was no longer afraid. Shasta the moluccan likes to bite on the back of the ankle when he is mad. My moluccan is so smart that he makes up his own sentences and says different ones all the time. Often he speaks the right thing at the right time and we have to be careful what we say around him because he understands so much. My female umbrella never bites me. Lesley