Need urgent help fattening my macaw (+Berta Pic)

[Monica]

Photos from Webshots don't actually show up here well unless your computer as cookies of that particular photo from before...

You can simply right click on the square box, go down to Properties, then copy the Address (URL) of the photo, and paste it in a new window....

Anyway, I hope this will help! Some are of Lilly, Gary's ruby, and others are just random ones... There are some out there though that have extensive amounts of green or yellow "crawling" up the backs...

[The Outlaw]

Just for comparison, here's a shot of Eenie, my Greenwing. You'll notice that Gary's Lily (First and second shots) has a truer blue in her flight and tail feathers. In the Greenwing, they are really more teals and turquoise. The Scarlet is red, yellow and blue. The Ruby can carry either the teals or blues as demonstrated in the third photo.

When I have viewed Ruby macaws and Greenwing macaws side by side (I've only been able to do that twice) I've noticed that both Ruby's were a brighter red. The Greenwings were more of a red wine color.

[Freedomoflight]

She looks an aweful lot like a GW to me- either that or a 2nd or 3rd generation hybrid, bred back to GWs

[The Outlaw]

Its really hard to guess from photos. Depending on whether or not a flash was used, natural light, etc. will determine how bright or dark her colors will look. She looks to be a brighter red in your profile photo, but that could be nothing more than lighting.

Wouldn't it be funny if after that long thread on hybrids that your little girl was a Greenwing ? Heck, you may never really know. And, that is exactly why producing hybrids can be a problem in the first place.

[Alyce Johnson]

Her old feathers werent so great - she was pretty tattered looking, when we got her. But up until the beak injury she was feeding quite well and was undergoing a really extensive molt. The new feathers looked pretty sound to me - no stress bars like the older ones had.

So I dont think the yellow mixed into the green is from poor diet - it looks like a nice color and the new definitely healthy feathers are growing in with amazing colors - sometimes 3 or 4 colors on a single feather. She even has tail feathers that are both red & blue - in a motled pattern on the upper surface I mean, not just different colors on diff sides.

The names for some of the other hybrids are more expressive (such as "harlequin" or "calico") - she's more of a splash up of different colors. "Ruby" sounds like she ought to be mostly a bright shiny red - which she isnt, of course. She reminds me of marbled paper, which I remember making as an art project as a kid. I havent inspected too many macaws closely though (I value my nose, large though it is) so maybe this is perfectly normal - I dont know enough to say.

But then again, I did see those pics of wild birds and several looked almost identical to Berta's coloring, so you may be right - she may well just be a very petite GW. I think I'm going to get my husband to put up the pics we have as a new link, if we can figure it out, and then just let everyone put in an opinion as to what she is. And if we dont have enough pics of the right parts of her, we can get more, depending on what parts people need to see to make up their minds.

[Alyce Johnson]

Looking at the pics above, she looks a lot like Miss Lily. She definitely has the dark blue as well as the turquoise, but her turquoise is underneath and the darker blue is in the flight feathers & tail. She did have a nice long dark red tail, but only one feather of it was left when I got her and it soon broke off. It's growing out slowly now, though. Eenie is so magnificent - such a lovely tail!

Some of Berta's tail feathers are even a weird swirl fo red & blue - I'm going to try to get Steve to take some more pics of her tomorrow - hopefully in natural light, if the weather cooperates. Your Eenie also looks more "neat & tidy" in her coloring - her green is much more defined and orderly than on Berta. Berta looks a little more "scrambled" - not such neat bands of color. I'll have to get better pics of her back, so you can see what you think. You may be right that we will never really know for sure.

[Winged_Victory]

Hi,

You have a beautiful bird!

If you have a Ruby the lines in the face will not stand out like they do in a GW, they will look more like a scarlet, bare facial patch. The head of a Ruby is smaller than a GW but may be hard for you to tell unless you have a GW to compare it to. Our Ruby is as big or bigger than our GW's (1350g).

Post a side view picture of your Ruby, one close up and one at a distance.

Gary