Newbie Baby Macaw Question Here

[bfriendjr]

Newbie Macaw Question Here

Hello Everyone,
I am rather new parrot owner, I adopted a 15-year-old Umbrella Cockatoo back In January and my wife bought me a baby Blue & Gold Macaw the middle of last month, who is now 12-weeks old.

This is also my first experience with hand feeding, and I must say things are going great. It has been such a great learning experience and a great opportunity to bond with him.
He is now 12-weeks-old today, weights 830 grams and is being feed 80ml three times a day. He is emptying his crop in about 6-hours and helps himself on a regular basis to a mixture of fresh vegetables, fruit and fruit-blend pellets that has been soaked to soften up everything. He is also very good at perching himself, as well as navigating between different level perches in his play cage (Max height of about 10-inches from the ground).

At this point I really have two questions for you all.

1) At what age can you start introducing them to water, such as a shallow bath or even a light shower? This little guy is very messy and despite cleaning his cages at every feeding (3 times a day), he still manages to find some to roll around in. I end up finding it just about everywhere on him, including the middle of his back. His sleeping/unattended cage is a rather large Rubbermaid tub that is covered with shredded newspaper. He seems to sleep in the clean areas, but decides to play everywhere else and that is when he is spreading it all over himself.

2) Is it too early to start cutting back on his hand feedings? As mentioned I am feeding him 80ml of Exact Macaw Formula three times a day. He is emptying his crop in about 6-hours and helping himself to the food that we keep with him at all times. This little guy loves to eat and will not hesitate to eat your hand if you are not careful after I give him the first round of formula.

My biggest fear with reducing his hand feeds too soon and causing him to dehydrate. He is also going thru some major growth spurts over the past couple weeks where he has put on as much as 25-30 gram in a 24-hour period.

It is also my understanding that the crop will start reducing in size during the weaning process, so I need to make sure how much I should be feeding him at any given hand feeding.

I greatly appreciate everyone’s time and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Have a great day.

Bill

 

[Birdman666]

1. I would introduce him to showering now... Nothing wrong with a good shower. In fact, the kitchen sink normally works pretty well for babies. Leave the water running, let it drain, let the bird stick it's head under the water and play.

2. NO! ABUNDANCE WEAN... Too long is better than too soon! Bad things happen if you stop hand feeding too soon.

When you do cut back, continue hand feeding for a time, even when the baby is on solid food, using a spoon, sitting the bird down on your lap. Abundance weaning does wonders for them psychologically...

 

[SilverSage]

I agree now would be a great time to introduce baths and showers in a positive way.

I also agree DO NOT start reducing his food. Abundance weaning is when you let the bird decide to wean on his own, which he will do when he is ready. Cutting back before he is ready can cause huge psychological issues and start your life with your baby (so hopefully the next 70+ years) off with a bird who is already unbalanced. It may be frustrating, but weaning and fledging are the two most critical times of a parrots'a development. You must be careful. I disagree with selling unweaned babies not because the hand feeding is hard, but because the weaning stage is so very important. I highly suggest doing a lot of reading on how to properly wean, and what the bird needs to experience during weaning and fledging. I recommend dr. Steve Hartman and everything he writes. He is at Hartman aviaries and the parrot university in Ohio, and is the creator if the aviator harness. He sells his babies unweaned, but has a lot of good info available for how the new owners should handle did critical time. Best of luck!

 

[bfriendjr]

I am actually in no hurry to wean this little guy, I kinda like doing it and spending that special time with him. I was at a local bird store that has its own active breeding program and they told me I should start reducing he's feeding. I personally thought it was to soon from what I have read so far.

I even have mixed emotions about unweaned birds being sold. It is a lot of responsibility and unfortunately the bird will ultimately be the one to suffer if things do not workout. Fortunately my vet tech experience, patience, drive to be successful, working from home and not being over confident is paying off. I now have a baby macaw that is growing like a weed and loves to be by me and seems to trust me already.

I got him when he was six weeks old and weighed about 525 gram. I have had him to the vet recently for a wellness check up and disease screening and everything passed with flying colors. They also said he is making very good progress for someone that has never done this before, which made me very happy to hear.

I spend most of my free time reading and watching video. Thank goodness to the internet....

My biggest unknown at this point, is what to look for when he is ready for me to reduce his feedings.

I have heard of "Dr. Steve Hartman" and watched a couple of the Aviator related videos. I will try to look up some of his articles. There is a good chance that I already read some and just did not make the association between the two.

SilverSage - What do you mean by "with a bird who is already unbalanced"?

Thanks

 

[SilverSage]

First let me be clear, when I say I don't like selling unweaned babies I am making a comment on the dangers from the side of the seller, not on you, the buyer. It seems like you have everything well in hand

As for unbalanced, I mean emotionally unbalanced from force weaning, which is a common practice in many stores and sadly by many breeders, where you wean the bird by cutting down his formula, leaving him. Hungry enough that he has no choice but to eat what you provide as dry food. Being left hungry has very severe emotional consequences for us species who are born helpless. I have seen gut wrenching examples of the damage it does in humans with my own adopted siblings, and research shows similar results in parrots, that is why I believe in abundance weaning.

As for when to start feeding less, simply do so when you are wasting formula. As in, your bird will begin to take less and less on his own, you just adjust with him. When he has rejected all formula feelings for two or three days, he is weaned

 

[Birdman666]

Most bird stores "force wean." Abundance Weaning is hands down, no contest, better... and study after study has proven this one.

IF you know what you are doing, and have been trained in how to hand feed it's one thing. So many people get in over their heads - ESPECIALLY WITH BABY MACAWS. I can't even begin to tell you how many we've seen die or been accidentally maimed because of things like not properly checking the temperature of the formula, or sour crop, or other bacterial infections that are allowed to fester due to improper housekeeping issues...

I HATE THE PRACTICE!!! But then I'm biased, as I had three burned crop babies die in my arms once... it left a lasting impression! Horrible and completely unnecessary!!!

I think what is meant by "unbalanced" really has to do with the potentially serious mental side effects of not allowing a baby to properly wean and fledge. It can have lasting detrimental affect that stunts the birds psychological growth. Everything from confidence and fear issues (and where there is fear, there can be biting and panic disorders), to plucking disorders can potentially result, especially if the bird is never allowed to fully fledge...

Fledging is where the "hand/eye" coordination of a bird comes in. They have to learn to take off, aim for a point, get there, and land softly. If they don't, they never develop that coordination, and are constantly crash landing, are fearful, and can get hurt. They may end up afraid to fly. (Can you imagine anything more useless than a bird who is afraid of flying?!) "Something isn't right with me. Other birds can, but I can't.")

Properly fledged birds are also confident birds. They DID IT! AND SO THEY ARE NOT AFRAID TO TRY... (As opposed to I did it, and I got hurt, or almost got hurt, and now I am afraid to try - anything - EVER! AND I WILL STUBBORNLY REFUSE TO TRY... )

Birds with full bellies, feel secure. The "unloved" wild bird is left to starve. If the bird goes hungry, it may sense that it is "unloved" or "rejected."

So that's the "Reader's Digest" version of why fledging and abundance weaning are critical factors in the psychological make up of a bird.

The trend for bird mills is to force wean and pump them out as fast as they can... and then you create problems.

Good breeders always abundance wean and never clip a bird until it has fully fledged.

 

[bfriendjr]

Thanks for all the useful information.

I have read that weaning and fledging is stressful on the bird, I could only imagining the additional stress related to Force Weaning. - Those poor things.

After adopting our Cockatoo, visiting rescues and hearing horror stories, the attitude and behavior of the bird is one of my biggest concerns; which is one of the main reasons I went with a baby that i need to hand feed. I just never realized that the weaning and fledging process could play such an importation part in the overall picture, so thank you for explaining that to me.

It is definitely a big chore and a lot of responsibility, but I am loving it. Even though it consumes most of my free time, i actually look forward to his feeding, giving him play time and watching him change with almost every interaction.

I might actually be a little over protective and to cautious still at this point. I still make family members sterilize there hands before handling him. I even clean his cages after each feed and I boil all of his feeding tools and bowls before they are used again. Fortunately I have three sets of everything including digital thermometers, so I only have to sterilize everything once a day. I also have a daily log of his weight, amount fed, and changes he has made.

It just amazes me with how fast he is growing and changing. I would not believe it if I have not seen it first hand.

Thanks for everyones time, this is a great site.

Bill

 

[SilverSage]

You sound like a first parent but what you may think is over protective is basically good bird keeping. Anyone hand feeding should be keeping a log like you race, and everything should be being sterilized. Boiling e toys may be going a little far, depending on how often you do it. I would suggest simply having your family wash their hands with regular hand soap instead of sanitizer of anything like that. Remember he is building his immune system right now, and in order to do that he needs some germs to fight, just not too many! So good on you for keeping things clean and keeping records, but remember that in the wild this little guy would live in a tree with bugs, and no disinfectant just to be clear on what I am saying, you absolutely DO need to sterilize he feeding tools, which I am glad you are doing. We are so glad to have you here with us.

On the fledging and weaning, I will not get into all my beliefs about wing clipping, you can pm me if you would like to know what I think (since you are new, you would need to pm a moderator and they would forward it on to me, once you have been around a while you can send and receive Messages directly) but it is a highly controversial topic that I don't want to get into in a thread like this. That said, please please please research the implications of clipping a bird before they are FULLY fledged, meaning they are expert fliers, generally in large parrots this cut off point would be around six months. Fledging is as important, perhaps more important, than proper weaning. Please research it again I suggest the articles by dr. Steve Hartman.