I need some advice ...

[brfussne]

I also feel like I shouldn't grab it's beak since that's what they do to it now. I don't want to reinact anything those people do or make the Macaw remember those people or associate me as one of them. I just want it to forget about those evil people and enjoy it's new life. Having lived 10 years there I highly doubt it will forget that place or those people, sadly.

[GlassOnion]

A lot of people I know -when they bring a new bird home- teach it 'beak pressure'. With larger birds, especially Hyacinth Macaws, a 'nip' can fracture a bone, so the breeder teachers his chicks how to be gentle with their beaks as they wean. I think the YCM at the store does bite out of frustration, but also doesn't really know how much beak pressure is hurting the human skin. I know a lady who bought an older Severe Macaw at a petstore, and she had to teach it how to be gentle with its beak over the next several months. If you do decide to get the YCM, you should spend a good deal of time playing with its beak and show him to be gentle

[brfussne]

A lot of people I know -when they bring a new bird home- teach it 'beak pressure'. With larger birds, especially Hyacinth Macaws, a 'nip' can fracture a bone, so the breeder teachers his chicks how to be gentle with their beaks as they wean. I think the YCM at the store does bite out of frustration, but also doesn't really know how much beak pressure is hurting the human skin. I know a lady who bought an older Severe Macaw at a petstore, and she had to teach it how to be gentle with its beak over the next several months. If you do decide to get the YCM, you should spend a good deal of time playing with its beak and show him to be gentle

Thank you for the help GlassOnion! I had no idea about beak pressure, well I knew of it but I figured all birds knew their own "bite force" to say. I will take your advice and play with his beak. Right now it doesn't really allow anyone to touch it other than an occasional step up. I'm going to try to get it to tolerate me touching it before I play with it's beak.

[CinnamonParrots]

I skimmed through all the posts since my last post, Wow! What a turn of events to say the least! Congrats on your new addition to your family! One of my good friends actually had a YCM, I met him a few times all outside of his home when we brought him out and about. His YCM had some attitude, but relatively friendly because he was well socialized with other pets and people in the right way. YCM remind me more of severe macaws rather than Hahn's macaws and I think it is also to do with their slightly larger size. I was never a big fan of severe macaws b/c the very first one I met was a nasty little boy! But I've gone on to meet wonderful severes. YCM are not actually common at all where I'm from. It's very rare to see anyone with a mini macaw let alone a YCM.

My manager actually has a plucked moluccan cockatoo that she adopted from a family who left her in a small cage with no toys growing up, so her bird does not know how to play with toys, and she is still learning! And she is also quite bald asides from wing and head feathers.

Which brings me to something I thought I'd mention unless I missed it being mentioned in an earlier post. If the YCM (have you thought of a name yet? ) you are getting is playful with toys, that saves you a lot of training, because a bird that doesn't know how to play and entertain itself will require more effort in training and exposure to new things because they are usually sitting around and kind of bored. Which could be a reason for plucking.

Also, with regards to biting, an article I read made a lot of sense, and I believe it was in BirdTalk. We train our birds to "bite" us, and after having raised a green-cheeked amazon without forcing him to do anything he really did not want to do, I gained his trust and avoided hard nips and he was not a biter at all. Instead, he readily stepped up onto my hand because I was on his schedule, I didn't push him, and I gave him the opportunity to explore his surroundings.

I think mainly, if you start with short sessions of training or "out of cage interaction time", and try not to give the bird a reason to bite you, it is usually a better option. I do hold the beaks of macaws when they are young and feisty, and training them not to bit hard, but I am not always for that approach when there's an option of teaching the birds not to bite in general. As the article put it, birds don't use their beaks readily to attack, their beaks are like our hands, we don't stick our hands into dangerous situations unless absolutely necessary... I believe the same goes for a bird who has no choice but to bite, or was taught to bite in order to get its way.

I hope this helps you in avoiding nasty bites. Slow and steady wins the race!

[brfussne]

I skimmed through all the posts since my last post, Wow! What a turn of events to say the least! Congrats on your new addition to your family! One of my good friends actually had a YCM, I met him a few times all outside of his home when we brought him out and about. His YCM had some attitude, but relatively friendly because he was well socialized with other pets and people in the right way. YCM remind me more of severe macaws rather than Hahn's macaws and I think it is also to do with their slightly larger size. I was never a big fan of severe macaws b/c the very first one I met was a nasty little boy! But I've gone on to meet wonderful severes. YCM are not actually common at all where I'm from. It's very rare to see anyone with a mini macaw let alone a YCM.

My manager actually has a plucked moluccan cockatoo that she adopted from a family who left her in a small cage with no toys growing up, so her bird does not know how to play with toys, and she is still learning! And she is also quite bald asides from wing and head feathers.

Which brings me to something I thought I'd mention unless I missed it being mentioned in an earlier post. If the YCM (have you thought of a name yet? ) you are getting is playful with toys, that saves you a lot of training, because a bird that doesn't know how to play and entertain itself will require more effort in training and exposure to new things because they are usually sitting around and kind of bored. Which could be a reason for plucking.

Also, with regards to biting, an article I read made a lot of sense, and I believe it was in BirdTalk. We train our birds to "bite" us, and after having raised a green-cheeked amazon without forcing him to do anything he really did not want to do, I gained his trust and avoided hard nips and he was not a biter at all. Instead, he readily stepped up onto my hand because I was on his schedule, I didn't push him, and I gave him the opportunity to explore his surroundings.

I think mainly, if you start with short sessions of training or "out of cage interaction time", and try not to give the bird a reason to bite you, it is usually a better option. I do hold the beaks of macaws when they are young and feisty, and training them not to bit hard, but I am not always for that approach when there's an option of teaching the birds not to bite in general. As the article put it, birds don't use their beaks readily to attack, their beaks are like our hands, we don't stick our hands into dangerous situations unless absolutely necessary... I believe the same goes for a bird who has no choice but to bite, or was taught to bite in order to get its way.

I hope this helps you in avoiding nasty bites. Slow and steady wins the race!

Hello CinnamonParrots!! Definitely a turn of events, but a good one! To this day I still have not recieved an email about the Dusky Pionus Parrot, I wonder why?? (It's been almost 2 weeks now) The breeder, Deb, told me that initially it was for someone else but he/she got ill and couldn't have it, so she was reselling it. I wonder if the original owner changed their mind? I wish Deb would have informed me that she changed her mind instead of "leaving me hanging," but no matter. I'm happy to have found this Mini Macaw that needs a wonderful home. I have not thought of any names for it. I keep thinking of what would be a good name but am stumped. I don't even know if it's a boy or girl?? One girl worker keeps calling it a girl and all the boy workers call it a boy. Being 10 years old & lived there it's entire life, wouldn't they have seen it lay an egg if it was a girl?? I honestly don't know, all I do know is that that place is REALLY sketchy. Everytime I try to ask them about the Mini Macaw's background history, feather plucking incident, anything relating to the Macaw they always give me a different answer, or never a complete one. In my house, my husband and I like to name our animals names that originate from the place the animal originates from, if that makes sense to you? For instance, we have a 9 month old male Siberian Husky puppy. We decided to name him Anabar because when I was doing research for Siberian names I couldn't find any, all I read was that people from Siberia usually are named Russian names. So, I then decided on Anabar because Anabar is a river in Siberia. My other dog, Trinity, is a Shar Pei/Staffordshire Terrier (pitbull) mix and she was a rescue and my mom named her. I think my mom named her Trinity after the woman in the movie, The Matrix, sadly, and not from the Bible. Then we have 2 Chinchillas, Gus & Jackson. Jackson was also a rescue and already had a name. Gus was just so darn fat & cute I decided to name him Gus after the mouse from Cinderella. But Chinchillas are from the Andes Mountains so I should have named him something relating to the Andes ... I'm open to any name suggestions. I'm hoping to go visit it today and if not today then tomorrow for sure. I bought some fruit treats and a clicker to (hopefully) help it start getting use to me, treats, and the clicker. Right now all the birds in the bird room are in small cages. Very small cages. I read that a YCM should have a MINIMUM cage space of 20x20x24 and I know that cage is NOT 20x20x24!! I'm positive it only has 1 toy in it's cage which i've never seen it play with so I have no clue if it knows how to play or not. The only things i've seen it do is nip, step up and whistle. I plan on letting the little fellow/miss have it's space and when we do things it'll be on the Mini Macaw's time. I'm starting to get things ready for the Mini Macaw. Yesterday I bought Totally Organic Pellets, Totally Organic seeds for sprouting and a perch for it. Thank you for the advice CinnamonParrots.

Even though this is a Parrot forum, I figured I'd post some pics of Anabar, Trinity, Gussy & Jackson.

Trinity


Anabar


Jackson & Gus (Jackson is on the right, & Gus on the left.)

[GlassOnion]

You have the cutest animals, and I'm excited to hear updates for when you get the YCM! We like photos!

[liz]

Visit a shelter.

[brfussne]

You have the cutest animals, and I'm excited to hear updates for when you get the YCM! We like photos!

Thank you GlassOnion, Trinity use to get all kinds of compliments when I lived in Indiana. Everytime I waked her someone would say "That's a good looking dog!" She's more wrinkley now and pudgier because she's older. haha Anabar is a bit older looking than the photo as well. I think he was 3 months old in that photo? He's a little thorn in my side but I still love him. My two Chinchillas are such a hoot. They go crazy when they're let out of their pen every night. I'll keep posting the updates here. I hope to get photos of the Macaw today or tomorrow when I visit it.

Visit a shelter.

Liz, I have visited plenty of shelters, in Indiana I actually voulenteered at one called HELP the animals. It was the only shelter out of three that was a non-kill shelter. My mom adopted a black cat named Fargo there who had feline leukemia because the shelter had several of cats that had that and no one was adopting them. We later changed his name to Jake. My sister adopted two dogs from a shelter in Indiana, one of the kill ones, a Border Collie mix named Jet & a Golden Retriever named Tyberius. Those two are the best dogs ever. Shelters are so sad. I have never seen a good shelter. Even the non-kill one was obviously over loaded with cats & dogs. There wasn't a lot of room but there was plenty of voulenteers to take care of the animals. They at least had a backyard for the dogs to run and a large kennel outside the dogs could run in. The kill one had nothing. No voulenteers and no backyard. The kill ones are the worst. The animals look so depressed. When I went with my sister to adopt Jet & Tyber at one of the kill shelters, the two receptionist women were these incredibly rude over weight women who were more concerned about their lunch than the animals. One woman said that they put "pitbulls" down the fastest because nobody likes them. Pfft. I believe SHE puts them down because she didn't like them. Somebody needs to euthanize those two women. We walked to the back room where the dogs were and as soon as we walked in the room the dogs began to go crazy. All they had on was a radio. Nobody ever came to walk them or visit them. They were back there in those tiny kennels everyday until somebody adopted them or they were euthanized. Breaks my heart. They all smelled like poo too. It was so inhumane. When my husband and I move back to Ohio and buy a farm, I plan on adopting lots of cats & dog from the kill shelter depending on how much land we have.

[liz]

I ment an avian shelter to learn different personalities before a person gets a bird.

Rambo, Myrtle, Tommy and Shadow like their beaks stroked with one finger.

You are brave to volunteer at a dog and cat shelter. The only time I can go there is when someone wants me to help them pick a pet. My heart can't take it otherwise. All I can do there is donate food and old blankets.

[brfussne]

I ment an avian shelter to learn different personalities before a person gets a bird.

Rambo, Myrtle, Tommy and Shadow like their beaks stroked with one finger.

You are brave to volunteer at a dog and cat shelter. The only time I can go there is when someone wants me to help them pick a pet. My heart can't take it otherwise. All I can do there is donate food and old blankets.

I was wondering what you meant by "visit a shelter." I thought you were referring to the comment I made about how the cages were very small for the birds and so I should see the kennels for dogs & cats at a shelter. I wish I could adopt every animal that needed a good home. A friend of mine told me on the phone yesterday that I couldn't save every animal and I told him that I could try!! I've never visited an Avian Shelter. I should but then I'd probably try to adopt another bird. I already promised my husband I wasn't getting any more animals till we moved back to Ohio.