Thanks for the welcome everyone. I honestly feel like she's the reverse of every baby macaw I ever saw online or of anyone's I ever talked to so far. She does not really play (she mainly just climbs around and chews stuff up and drops it), she's a bit phobic of random objects (for instance certain basic foot toys scare her and she attacks them like they are the very devil, even hisses at them. Each new thing is a question about whether or not she will be ok with it and what she deems scary gets removed from sight). She lost her marbles the other day when she saw me with a pen! The sight of a towel makes her scream bloody murder. When I change her bowls in the morning she tries to attack my hands but I don't allow her to run me off my duties. She's been phobic of my youngest child (13 years old) and she screams sometimes when she comes near. It makes no sense because she is quiet and calm, and doesn't have an unkind bone in her body. Why she chose her of all people to feel afraid of escapes me completely. She's been handing her nuts in order to create more trust and that does seem to be helping. She used to literally scream loudly when she saw her approach, now she just eye pins for awhile and says HI! kinda loud. "Hi" is her fear word. She does try to run me off especially first thing in the morning when I change her bowls by bluffing and lunging. None of this is play behavior, that much I can tell. She means business, her war feathers are up and she bites the crap out of everything around her sometimes for no reason at all. I'm not trying to touch her or rile her up, I'm just removing bowls and putting in new food/water. I don't know what happened to her where she came from, but I do know nothing bad happens to her here. I don't know why she feels so threatened. Our small victories are due to positive rewards during clicker/target training. I know we have to be patient and work with her and do things on her schedule. Everything takes time and things are still really new a month in. I bought from this place online because I had seen other people with perfectly cuddly birds that came out of there, I don't know what happened to ours to cause her this level of fear and upset defensive behavior. Maybe it was the airplane shipping, don't know. She had a pretty bad rough wing clip and was chewing on her leg band (I had the vet remove it) like she wasn't used to it. I can tell she must have been toweled because she can't stand the sight of them. When we shower her I move the hung up towels out of sight because she hates showers enough as it is without adding her most feared object to the mix, although afterward she gets a little goofy like she feels good and climbs around her enclosure top like a monkey. I don't spray her down in the shower, we put the spray near her and stick our hand under the water stream so that it bounces off us and onto her. We drizzle water over her back and try to get it up under her chest and neck. We try to not traumatize her.
She's finally eating her fresh fruits and veggies pretty well, but detests anything of cooked consistency and won't touch it. I make her a mixed chop of fresh things because right now that's basically all the non-dry food she'll eat. She likes birdy bread a little-as long as I cook it a little more dry. She's on a mixture of Zupreme natural, Harrison's, and Roudybush pellets mixed with Goldenfeast blends. And nuts in the shell, boy she'll do anything for those. I just ordered a bird cookbook called Feathered Faire to learn what more I can make that she might like. She seems to prefer men, I don't care, I love her. I'll do anything I can to get through to her in the end.
So anyway, that's what is going on at the moment. We're working with her, trying to get her anxiety level down. When I said basically that I was the boss and she was being a terror right now, that's why. She tries to bluff me off and out of her enclosure but I won't let her. I have to be able to change dishes and clean the enclosure without getting bit. So when she charges towards me (sometimes she will even climb clear across the 80 inch width of the enclosure from one side to the other to get to me) I won't move away. If she lunges at my hands I ball them up into a fist to protect my fingers and push back at her until she backs off. I'm not mean about it, but I am firm in letting her know she can't run me out.