Eight month old macaw

[Navre]

A girl has contacted the rescue. She bought a macaw in January. The bird is eight months old now. The bird was obviously weaned too soon, but at this point is it still a baby, or is it a juvenile? Should it still be one one hand fading a day, or should it have access to soft, mushy food in addition to veggies and fruits, etc?. This owner is starting from square one. She was feeding the colored Zupreem. which is probably the worst pellet there is. She said the bird is screaming. I think she might just be hungry.

[Pajarita]

Sheesh! He could be screaming from hunger and he could be screaming because he is a baby that has been treated as an adult and not given the specialized care a baby needs OR he could be screaming from a combination of both! I swear, breeders should all be shot... selling a baby to somebody who has not idea what to do! It's criminal!

Now, as to what to do... I don't think that she will be able to handfeed it now, after so many months of not doing it but he should definitely get soft food! But that doesn't mean that I not try to handfeed it! I certainly would! Tell her to try with a large syringe and see what happens... he might love it or he might ignore it. But she should not use commercial formula, it should be a homemade mix of whole grain flours with pureed baby food. And remind her it needs to be warm - both the soft food AND the homemade formula.

And she should be prepared for this bird to have long-term issues because a baby that goes hungry for months and months is an adult that will have issues all its life.

[Saltz]

Is there a chance that a baby that was mishandled can be rehabilitated somehow?

[Pajarita]

Yes, there is if the person knows what he is doing but mishandling is not the same as not feeding a baby properly. There are studies that tell us that baby birds that went hungry will have eating disorders for the rest of their lives and I have found this to be true not only of babies but also of adults. I have a male canary that I had to handfeed because the mother got sick and he eats way too much all the time (I compensate by giving him lots of leafy greens and fruit/veggies and a lower protein seed mix so he doesn't get fatty liver disease). This is what happens when baby birds go hungry while growing up - as adults, they are never satisfied, they want more and more and often end up screaming all the time and/or becoming obese (the canary I have also cannot be bred because he never learned how to properly care for babies when he was a baby in the nest from his own parents - this when they learn parental skills). But I also had a lovebird that had been starved on purpose (girlfriend leaves boyfriend, boyfriend retaliates by starving her birds -his mate actually died of starvation and the corpse left in the cage) and he did not only end up with compromised internal organs and a super severe stargazing but he had to be handfed because, on his own, he would not have eaten enough to survive (he was always terribly skinny and would never gain weight no matter how rich was the food I fed him).