[The Outlaw]

Preparing your home for your new baby macaw

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When you get your baby macaw from your breeder, he will come trusting and friendly and just a little nervous. He will be used to humans and you will be his life line. Unlike other baby animals, he will be completely at the mercy of your decisions. Consequently, its best to try to think about properly managing his space.

Most of the big macaws will come to their new homes around 6 months old. Many may actually get there earlier, but usually within a few weeks of weaning, they are deemed ready to roll

Be sure to know how to handfeed. Your breeder should be very willing to show you how and provide you with the proper feeding equipment and formula . Many weaned babies regress shortly after being placed in their new surroundings.

Your baby will have learned to honk to get attention, especially when he's hungry. This can drive you insane if you don't understand that not every HONK means "I'm hungry". It often means, "I need some love". Try to meet their needs now, but don't let them train you to come running every single time they get lonely. This will only create BIGGER problems later.

Your first cage will not be your last one. That's because a cage too large offers too many opportunities for baby birds to get hurt. Many young BGs, for example, are often started in cages actually designed for Amazons and Ekkies.
Since cages aren't as cheap as shoes, you can actually alter the interior of a full sized macaw cage with a few ingenious touches. You can either raise your bottom grate or place carboard boxes, bottom side up, on the bottom and cover them with papers to catch droppings. Big baby birds routinely fall. They climb too high and miscalculate a whole lot of things. Hearing your baby crash into the bottom grate will terrify you, I promise. By having the cardboard boxes on the bottom, it creates a cushiony trampoline effect. They may bounce, but they won't bleed.

Say goodbye to that long and absolutely divine tail. Your breeder has carefully monitored a lot of things to insure that your baby is breathtakingly beautiful when you pick him up. In other words, he has restricted his play area. All baby macaws will totally destroy their tails for the better part of 2 years. They are athletic and simply don't really care and haven't yet learned to "drive" them. As they mature and decide to pick up a few "chicks" that will likely change. Plummage, like hair matters.

All babies are messy. You will need to shower often. Start with a very low perch in your shower area in the event of a fall. You may raise the bar as your baby learns the rules. Most birds like to shower and actually prefer water a bit on the cool side.Try to shower early in the day so that he can have ample time to really dry out. Feathers are what insulates him from cold and heat. Wet feathers aren't good insulators. Please, however, don't use a hairdryer. It can dry out feathers and many have Teflon inside. They will dry nicely all by themselves and he will learn to groom himself, too. This concludes lesson number one.

THE OUTLAW