New to the community

[Medic3709]

Good morning all you bird lovers! My name is Michael and I am new to this community. I have previously owned several birds including a tiel, peach and Fischer's Lovebirds, a quaker and my last and most precious is a TAG. But I am moving up into the world of large birds by welcoming home a 3 year old Harlequin and Calico Macaw in about 6 months!

A little about me and my family, I am a Paramedic and full time EMS Educator, my wife works in food production and we have two girls age 5 and 10. We live in Northern Illinois. I have had a love for birds for about 20 years and just find myself drawn to them when I go to a pet store.

I have some questions about these birds in particular. Both were raised as hand tamed. They were put together as a breeding pair that never did produce a clutch. The Harlequin (Annabelle) was brought back to the store to have the lady that owns the store hand tame her again and find her a home. It was during her first week at the store that I found and fell in love with Annabelle and began to work with her myself and was able to make progress to hand feed her and start to touch her beak and head. After about a week of progress the breeder brought in the Calico (Hagar) which was Annabelle's "boyfriend". Now both birds have been brought back together. I am now trying to work with them, Annabelle will still take treats and allow me to touch her beak, Hagar does not seem to like men and am having a hard time trying to make that connection with him.

Sooooo with all of this I am looking for suggestions or a thread to help me, how do I work with these two. They obviously have a bond as breeders. Would I be better keeping them apart at least while working with them? As long as they are in close proximity to each other will there continue to be issues trying to hand tame them again. Any suggestions would be welcome or please point me in the direction of a thread for me to look at while I investigate this forum on my own.

Thank you all for having me and I am looking forward to the information these pages hold for me.

[Laurasea]

welcome to you and your family!! O hope you will join in and offer help to others as well.

Yours is a very specific situation. My only suggestion is target training.

Congratulations on your future big birds .

[Scott]

Welcome Michael, thanks for a detailed introduction! Kudos for your life-saving and educating profession!!

Your strategy in part ought be based on intent: I assume you aim to maintain Annabelle and Hagar as companions/pets? Or do you intend to eventually set them up for potential breeding? If the latter, understand a pair may over time have less desire to interact with humans.

Some parrots by nature prefer a specific sex. Bonding with Hagar will require greater effort, this thread may share some tips: Tips for Bonding and Building Trust Identifying a favored treat such as almonds or walnuts will be of great assistance.

Given their breeder history, single most critical factor is avoidance of nestboxes or similar environments. Encouraging them to bond with you and your family is possible as macaws are social by nature. I've not worked with breeder macaws, but would suggest spending time with them individually and together. Perhaps a bit of extra time with Hagar in the interim.

[Medic3709]

Quote: Originally Posted by Scott

Welcome Michael, thanks for a detailed introduction! Kudos for your life-saving and educating profession!!

Your strategy in part ought be based on intent: I assume you aim to maintain Annabelle and Hagar as companions/pets? Or do you intend to eventually set them up for potential breeding? If the latter, understand a pair may over time have less desire to interact with humans.

Some parrots by nature prefer a specific sex. Bonding with Hagar will require greater effort, this thread may share some tips: Tips for Bonding and Building Trust Identifying a favored treat such as almonds or walnuts will be of great assistance.

Given their breeder history, single most critical factor is avoidance of nestboxes or similar environments. Encouraging them to bond with you and your family is possible as macaws are social by nature. I've not worked with breeder macaws, but would suggest spending time with them individually and together. Perhaps a bit of extra time with Hagar in the interim.

You are correct in my intent is to have a NON-breeding pair of birds. I am certainly not equipped to be breeding birds let alone these gentle giants!! Maybe in the future but for now I am looking for some good, goofy companion birds. I have started to look into target training and will start that ASAP. I was lucky with my TAG, I got her as a baby and made bonding easy. Annabelle came into the pet store a week earlier so I’ve had more time with her but I intend to work more with Hagar one on one in the next week or so to try to overcome some of that gender based angst or fear he may have. Thank you for the thread recommendation and I will be checking that out!

[clark_conure]

welcome to the boards....

[Oliver17]

how exciting! welcome

[Flboy]

Hi and welcome! Birdman666 is your mentor!
Also, this, by SailBoat is a fantastic study!
I Love Amazons - An On-Going Journey!

[wrench13]

Welcome and be welcomed. As stated above, read any and all posts by birdman666, who is our resident macaw guru. And the I Love Amazon thread has a lot of information that is applicable to all parrots.

[Scott]

Quote: Originally Posted by Medic3709

Quote: Originally Posted by Scott

Welcome Michael, thanks for a detailed introduction! Kudos for your life-saving and educating profession!!

Your strategy in part ought be based on intent: I assume you aim to maintain Annabelle and Hagar as companions/pets? Or do you intend to eventually set them up for potential breeding? If the latter, understand a pair may over time have less desire to interact with humans.

Some parrots by nature prefer a specific sex. Bonding with Hagar will require greater effort, this thread may share some tips: Tips for Bonding and Building Trust Identifying a favored treat such as almonds or walnuts will be of great assistance.

Given their breeder history, single most critical factor is avoidance of nestboxes or similar environments. Encouraging them to bond with you and your family is possible as macaws are social by nature. I've not worked with breeder macaws, but would suggest spending time with them individually and together. Perhaps a bit of extra time with Hagar in the interim.

You are correct in my intent is to have a NON-breeding pair of birds. I am certainly not equipped to be breeding birds let alone these gentle giants!! Maybe in the future but for now I am looking for some good, goofy companion birds. I have started to look into target training and will start that ASAP. I was lucky with my TAG, I got her as a baby and made bonding easy. Annabelle came into the pet store a week earlier so I’ve had more time with her but I intend to work more with Hagar one on one in the next week or so to try to overcome some of that gender based angst or fear he may have. Thank you for the thread recommendation and I will be checking that out!

You'll find a wealth of information in the Macaw Forum! Macaws are an interesting study in comparison to Greys with vastly different personalities.

[Medic3709]

Quote: Originally Posted by Laurasea

welcome to you and your family!! O hope you will join in and offer help to others as well.

Yours is a very specific situation. My only suggestion is target training.

Congratulations on your future big birds .

Thank you very much! I have already started the Target Training and making some progress. I hope to be able to provide insight from my own experience during this process to help others!