Living with a GW

[Shelli]

Ok all. So my fantasy parrot is a green wing macaw. I love these macaws, I mean, they all cause my heart to flutter but the green wing especially.

I am wondering what your life is like with one. Do you find yourself saying “This is why we can’t have nice things?” Is it near impossible to find a suitable cage?

How much do you spend on toys and food? How often do you replace toys and have you come up with thrifty ways of making your own?

I am kind of hoping someone will crush my fantasy before I get too carried away with it. I just want to know everything about your life with a green wing macaw!

 

[hrafn]

@Hankmacaw has shared her life with Hank and Jasper the GW macs, and she doesn't beat around the bush. She'll be able to hand you a proper rundown.

 

[Hankmacaw]

I love GWs too. Like @hrafn said I have lived with two GWs - both at the same time until Hank died seven years ago. I got them both as adults. Hank was 18/19 and had been terribly abused for the ten years before I bought him. Jasper I got as a 6 1/2 year old three years later. She had been greatly loved, but poorly taken care of and her health has suffered for that her entire life.

Their personalities were like night and day. Hank was aggressive and assertive (mean as heck) and Jasper doesn't and never has had a mean bone in her body. It took about five years, but Hank and I became best buddies - we both had to make compromises. Jasper has always just been Jasper, a sweetheart.

GWs are not for the faint of heart, they are very smart, quite confident and BIG AND POWERFUL. A male GW when hormonal is a force to contend with and can be very dangerous.

Like any parrot they are destructive, but GW are bigger and stronger and can do a lot more damage to your favorite antiques . They are louder than any parrot except the Hyacinth, but both of mine were/are very quiet for a parrot. Also, like any parrot they are each and every one an individual. They are more expensive to keep large housing, bigger and more toys, lots of food and the damage.

I've never had anything to do with baby birds, but @aooratrix has raised a baby girl GW.

 

[darwinparrot]

I have had experiences with 3 greenwings in my life and they were all very different. Pele was my uncles first greenwing macaw and she came from a florida animal auction. She was nasty to everyone expect my uncle and children. If she did bite it was to hurt you and she was very protective of the house. Zack was a 15 year old rescued greenwing male. Very particular about his people but once he liked you he was relatively safe to handle and never really had much for destruction except phone books and his toys. Apollo was a greenwing male that was around 20 and also a rescue that lived with me as a foster for about a year. He did not favor anyone and would pretty much go to anyone that would give him attention. Never bit anyone hard enough to draw but which is very surprising for a year of handling. However his ability to enrich himself and stay amused was drastically better than the other two who were perch potatoes like my severe macaw Sweetie. Now I am looking into adopting a 13 year old female who is very feisty but is very good if you play by her rules. She is already familiar with clicker training and rings a bell as a warning before she goes off on a screaming binge so you have a chance to go over what she needs. She actually has been taken care of super well and consistantly her entire life so her personality is more spoiled and diva like than the other 3. In other words she has higher expectations for care and interaction. If and when I adopt her this summer I will be sure to let you know how she turns out.

 

[tka]

If you haven't found it yet, several people share their experiences of GWs in this thread: The good, the bad, and the ugly about Large Macaws | Avian Avenue Parrot Forum

Also tagging @macawpower58 who can tell you about Chaos.

 

[macawpower58]

Chaos, 19 years of heaven and hell.
A sweet baby for over 10 years. Wore a harness, went with me to fairs, festivals, and outings. Loved car rides and cuddles.
Would pick up his foot for nail trims, lie in my lap, and was a constant joy.
Teen years brought challenge at about 8 years of age. Rebellion, refusal to go into the cage, nipping began. That wasn't so bad, but happened suddenly.
Rough play, fluffed feathers, big attitude.
Then maturity hit at about 12. Bites. Big bites. They came (in my eyes) for no reason. Attacks. Hatred it seemed he had for me.
Life became about protection. Pillows and blankets to ward off my once loving friend.
So many tears. This for several years.
Now things are calmer. Haven't been bit for 3 or 4 years. We've come to an understanding.
But no more cuddles. No more harness. No more petting.
We have had so many changes. We are now roommates that like each other on good days, tolerate each other on bad.
He'll come to sit on my lap, but my hands can't pet. We will have more changes, and I think they'll be for the better as time mellows us both more.
At times I didn't think we'd make it. This forum got me through the really bad times.
Not easy, far from it. But worth every moment to me.
Chaos, 19 years of challenge, growth and change.

 

[SherLar]

WOW. What a huge change in Chaos. I am sure it has been very hard to give up the sweet boy that he was for so long, to being the the rascal, to his current identity.

I don't know how to do that. To not take things personally, to not self blame, to not give up against that. We have only been chugging at large parrots for about a year now, and we went for ones that had already gone through puberty, but it has not gone quite as expected, and they came from poor situations, there has been good, bad and just plain changes, aka challenges for all of us.

I guess we all just take one day as it comes, as with anything, and that is how we get through it. Thank you so much for your story. Very encouraging. I was an oncology nurse and now have my own terminal illness, so not knowing how strong your are, until there is no other option, is exactly how it goes. Many of my patients over many years, amazed me in so many ways and I will forever be in their debt. And people like you, will guide us through helping these parrots we have taken into our lives.

Thank you!!
sherri

 

[macawpower58]

I'm glad my experiences helped you a bit.

I think Sherri it's about accepting. Accepting that you can't control everything, and being OK with it.
Accepting life is always changing, and with such intelligent, long lived creatures as our birds are, learning to change with them.
Learning to forgive them, and ourselves for the mistakes we make. Believe me, mistakes will be made.
Hug those you can, and enjoy a talk with those you can't.
Sometimes I look at Chaos and wonder what he thinks. But he's not telling me, he keeps his secrets.
And that's OK, I love him just as he is.

I think you'll do fine. Just accept that those feathered fiends rule the roost!

 

[Fia Baby]

I have a 4.5 year old girl whom I raised from about 14 weeks. Her cage is huge and relatively expensive. Her perch is also large, but we made that ourselves. I do a combination of bought and home-made toys. Buying a lot of them is really pretty expensive and they don't last long. It's not hard to made them, but you do need some tools. They may not be as cute, but she doesn't care. She is VERY destructive if not watched carefully. She is never out of her cage unsupervised - NEVER. I love having her, but she's still very young and I do worry that her personality may change, but only time will tell. At this point everyone in my family can handle her with confidence, but I know that may change at some point. The biggest obstacle, in my opinion, is the difficulty of finding someone trustworthy to care for her when we travel. I have other pets, so she's not my only concern, but parrots, especially large ones, are definitely more difficult. They can be scary for some people (and for some people, not scary enough! I have one house sitter who proudly told me how she let her out of her cage while we were gone, after having been told not to... I'm sure Fia LOVED being out of her cage, but what would this person have done if she hadn't gone back in on her own?) Macaws generally aren't all that gentle either - they can be quite rowdy and rough. She's never intending to hurt anyone, but she can get excited and use too much pressure. But it's very easy to tell that she's overly excited, and back off until she calms. And they are very needy, at least mine is. Mine isn't noisy, but she can be VERY loud on occasion. A human's response to this type of sound is rarely good - she can drive you from the room or make you want to kill her. Thankfully it's not often. If something startles them they have a very loud alarm call (and mine startles much more often than my cockatoo). She can also be pretty loud when we walk out of a room without her. But she is pretty agreeable to using "peek-a-boo" as her flock call, especially if I say it first, to cue her. Honestly, I think she's a joy, but she's not for everyone!