screaming blue and gold

[Franciscus]

Razz, my blue and gold macaw, has gotten really noisy lately. She is 5 years old this month and I attribute the screaming to hormones (she is also trying to regurgitate for me which I discourage). She is fairly quiet when I'm at home but screamed for several hours this afternoon while I was at work. It was the same yesterday. I have covered up the windows in the room her cage is in with dark blue fabric to shorten the day. The lights in that room are on timers and go on at 7 AM and off again at 8:30 PM. I have also decided to reduce the amount of nuts she will be getting every day (she got 6 to 10 nuts a day untill now) as well as giving her fewer showers per week, limiting it to 1 to 2 weekly. Do you think these things wil have an affect on her? Do you have any other suggestions? She is out of her cage for an hour before I go to work, and a few hours after work, as well as lots of out of the cage time for 3 days a week.

[The Outlaw]

Frank:

The only thing I can think of is shortening the light periods. Let her rise and set with the actual sun. You might want to try to teach her some tricks when you get home to help distract her from her "adulthood practice". My macaws have been very vocal as well, but luckily not screaming. Only Margarita is really old enough to be breedy and she's been nippy and all over me.

Do you ever fly your birds? I take them, one at a time, and holding both feet securely in my hands I swing them high and low while they flap their wings. They get very, very excited like human children when you swing them around by their hands and feet. She has a lot of energy she needs to get rid of.

You might want to increase her showers, too. I am trying to get back on the every other day schedule with mine. Preening wet feathers takes a lot of time.

THE OUTLAW

[Franciscus]

Thank you Nancy,

I put my birds to bed in a darkened room before sunset during the summer months and the sun rises quite early too. I feel it's healthier for them to get at least 10 hours of sleep. I think the increase in daylight triggered Razz's hormonal behavior and it's due to the sun rising earlier (right now around 5:30-6:00). Untill last night there was no light blocking window covering in their room.

I do "fly" my birds. Razz has the most severe clip of my birds. I let her hold on to her interlocking acrylic rings which I swing back and forth to let her blow off steam. I have been doing that in the evening with her but I will start that in the mornings too.

I have read that about the showers. I have also read that to decrease the amount of showers will help with hormone levels. That is due to the fact that it is beleived there are several triggers in their natural habitat: increase in rainfall and longer daylight (which increase the amount of food available), as well as availability of high fat foods such as nuts. Perhaps it is all just speculation but....

The biggest problem with all this is that she's fine when I'm at home. I work on weekends when Guy is home. Guy does not spend much time interacting with the birds and gets extremely frustrated at Razz's screaming (which I understand completely) I have asked him to go and talk to the birds when they are being quiet to re-enforce that.