I'm pretty much just posting this as a sorta rant, sorta crowd-sourcing hope.
I just got a GW macaw from a local bird store 1 week ago today. While tirelessly seeking knowledge about other aspects of what to expect, there's one thing that doesn't seem to have a definite answer.
She's clipped. Her wing feathers don't look great (I don't have any experience with a clipped bird, so maybe it just looks bad to me). If I can get a picture of her wings open, I'll post it to see what anybody here thinks. Anyway, it makes me so sad that somebody took those gorgeous wings and destroyed them. She also does this thing sometimes where it looks like she's trying to pluck feathers out of her wings, but I never see her get one out. Just makes this awful crunching noise near the base of the wing.
I have read a lot about birds who damage their follicles and can't grow certain feathers back. So I'm worried, but hopeful that she will one day get to grow those feathers back and get to experience flight. I just have no idea how long I'm about to have to wait, or what the signs will look like if she will be unfortunate enough to not be able to grow those feathers back.