how to handle a large parrot

[borjawil]

Hi I hope this is the right place to post this. I will be getting my first big parrot, a blue and gold macaw, and was wondering how to handle him? Ive handled smaller birds but never a large one. Any tips on how to do this? Improbably just being a little anxious but dont want to hurt or scare the bird. thanks!

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Can you handle the bird with the person you are getting him from so you gain some confidence?

I haven't handled any REALLY big birds, so take this with a very large grain of salt, but it seems to me that the main differences going from small to medium would be similar going to large, only more so. Mainly that perches need to scale up and you want to do all the things you should do right with a small bird, right with the bigger one. He may need to perch on an arm or hand rather than a finger, and IMO you would need to rely more on training the basics because you won't be as able to just scoop the bird up in an emergency or just grab him to trim his claws. I also would be slower to let a big bird onto my shoulder, I'd want to be quite confident I could get him off again before I did! And I'd be particularly careful about going slow and not pushing out of the bird's comfort zone -- bigger bird = bigger beak = bigger bite, so while being afraid isn't the right answer, erring on the side of going too slow rather than too fast probably makes sense and I wouldn't want a macaw to learn that biting is an effective way to control humans. Much easier to fix that with something the size of a GCC.

On the other hand, larger birds don't seem as quick and mercurial.

[borjawil]

Yea I figured as much, guess I'll just use common sense and go slow. Thanks!