Normal or hormonal?

[Lilytahlia]

My macaw tries to regurgitate on me every time I scratch his head. I don’t pet him anywhere else since I know the dangers of a hormonal bird and how unfair it is in general but his past owners only ever stroked his tail due to being afraid of his beak and the owners before them were very abusive and didn’t give him any kind of affection so that was the only kind of affection he got for 25 years. He warmed up to me pretty fast and has learned a lot in the past month but I’m afraid that petting his head might be making him hormonal. I’ve had birds try to regurgitate on me before but never this often. Is this normal behavior for a macaw who has had a past like his or should I stop preening his head?
Sometimes he’ll even try to throw up when I call him a good boy/pretty bird

 

[SailBoat]

Sounds like your Mac is very happy.
This is common regurgitate and in this case it is highly likely your Mac is displaying joyful regurgitation and not necessarily hormonal driven. More a common (normal) reaction of a Mac that has found a wonderful home.

 

[Lilytahlia]

Sounds like your Mac is very happy.
This is common regurgitate and in this case it is highly likely your Mac is displaying joyful regurgitation and not necessarily hormonal driven. More a common (normal) reaction of a Mac that has found a wonderful home.

so happy to hear that! thank you for replying

 

[noodles123]

To me, he sounds happy but also a bit hormonal. If it were me, I would just try not to attend to it and see if you could try to avoid the triggers for a bit...I am not saying never to pet him, but you might keep the petting sessions shorter etc just because an adult bird regurgitating (in my experience) usually does relate to hormones in some way (even if it is because they love you more than anyone and are super happy!!--it isn't always like, "I want to have sex", but there is usually a hormonal element).

 

[mcochran248]

My 10 month old male GW does this too. I try to only scratch the head and neck area and sometimes only play with a toy and he still does it. I guess they are happy birds...