advice/ opinion on new maxi pi

hi from uk here
today I pick up a maximillian pionus but im having doubts about the stores knowledge and honesty. I was told on the phone it was hand reared and tame. getting to the store its screaming - well was a more honking sound, and a lot bigger than what I imagined a baby to be.
I asked for the hatch date and certificate and got handed a small laminated piece of paper saying dna tested male but couldn't find a hatch day? just reception date?
part of me wanted to walk out the shop there and then but the other half said I cant find a maxi ANYWHERE and shoved doubts aside!

so I get him home and open the box and he jumps out the box, I was expecting him to fly out of reach but he just stumbled and flapped in place. I could see he hadn't been clipped and got full wings so why isn't he flying?
surely they can fly this age, apparently around 4mths I was told but he is big? measuring him (through bars as he isn't keen on me) he measures 10inches head to tip of tail.

ive tried to find a website to answer all these queries and how big a baby maxi is with no luck so I have come here. im guessing im going to be told i have been well and truly done over :-( if so I will be returning the bird especially if there is a problem with his wings.
thanks in advance.

From what you are saying he may well be just a large baby. The clumsiness steers my thinking that way.

Birds in general reach full size quickly and are clumsy until they get used to their stature.

As far as not being able to mess with him, you just literally ripped him away from everything he has ever known. He is terrified and does not know if that big monster is going to feed him or eat him. Give it time to gain his trust.

hi
thanks for replying, ive calmed down abit now haha. I managed to contact a breeder and he reassured me he's weaned babies are 8inches so im guessing I do have a big baby also that the wings flapping going no where might be where he's panicked / unsettled.

I wasn't upset that I couldn't mess with him, I know it will take time to gain trust, was more worried that id been lied to. still abit puzzled as to why they couldn't say exactly how old he is. but good news is he let me give head scritches so moving in the right direction.

When I brought my White cap pi home he was almost 3.5 months old. He wasn't too scared of me because I visited him all the time for like a month before he came home. But I was surprised that he would constantly just fall off his perches and gym. Now at 1 year he is hanging off one foot upside down etc. They are clumsy heavy bodied birds as babies. I also don't really think he got that much bigger since then, just filled out. He's about the same size lengthwise as when I got him. Hang in there. He'll steal your heart.

P. S. That honk sound is a baby noise. Sounds like a little machine gun. They grow out of it.

Birds usually are visually as big as they're going to get soon after they're fully feathered. They fill out though and Pionus get heavier for up to 1.5-2 years depending on the bird. Maxi's are the biggest Pionus, and some can get to be over 300 grams when mature.

Too bad you can't get the hatchdate, but sounds like he's young enough to be a clumsy baby from how you describe . Any chance of pics? Do you have a name picked out?

thanks for your reassurance, yes this morning he did fall off his perch and crashed like a stone! i will get some pictures uploaded soon, as for a name - i kind of like Fagin, a character from film oliver twist because when i got him home he sat in the corner of his cage with shifty eyes haha....

ok so i have to update that on further inspection my pi's wings had been clipped :-( i cant get a proper look at them but it looks like the last 4 or so primary's, which is ok but im not sure if they are suppose to be cut close to primary coverts, the shafts look quite jaggered, but as i say i can only glimpse when he's stretching out.
he has no grace when landing so im worried he might damage his keel or even break a wing or leg as he just crashes! im abit upset that i wasn't made aware of his clipping on purchase. unless when they said he was hand reared they mean clipped to hand tame/rear. sorry ive gone on abit...

Just be extra careful to not have him in any high up place, or too far from a soft fall. Maybe position his perches in his cage lower, to where there won't be too big of a distance to fall. Don't hold him up too high, especially until he's used to you enough that you're sure he's not going to try and leap off of you. It's a pain, but you'll get used to working around this temporary handicap.

Raven went through his first molt at around a year old, but many Pionus start months before that. Once he grows out the flight feathers you can go from there, to teach him to fly or do a longer clip depending on your circumstance.
Yours is obviously a young bird who has never fledged. A responsible breeder will let the young birds fledge (take their first flights and learn how to fly) before considering clippping wings. Raven was a pretty strong flier already before he was ever clipped, so that he never dropped like a rock. His muscles were so conditioned that he was still able to fly surprisingly far and fast even clipped.

Anyway, clipping is a very controversial topic and I don't want this thread to go off topic into a discussion about it. Keep us posted on your Maxi!

that's ok i just thought id update as i couldn't work out why he wasn't flying and so flappy. it did come to mind that he had been clipped too soon as he has no idea!
but it'll be ok i'll get him there

oh and i cant pick him up just yet so he wont fall from being on me. yesterday he kind of leaped and attempted to fly off my sofa but fell down between the side of the sofa and unit!
i don't want to make him stay in his cage but should i wait until he steps up to me to come out? at the moment he climbs out and fly's (or flops!) out of the cage. i cant pick him up because hes bitey and hates his wings being touched.

Fonzie still doesn't like his wings touched very much. He was clipped as a baby too. They kinda looked jagged and ruffed up some of his feathers where the ends rubbed on his sides. When I got him, I was actually glad he was clipped.... He was easier to step up. However I often thought he was going to kill himself from falling or landing so hard. Now he is 15 months old and all his primaries have grown in except for two, but now I am afraid he's gonna kill himself learning to fly. He has learned from his crashes though, so I hope he figures it out soon. It's nerve racking.