Absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait until all Ari's feathers grow back in so he looks like Rocky. We adopted Ari in August and he's a trip. He's mischievous, funny, loving, and has adapted far more quickly than I expected. Our Ari is 22. I'm curious as to how long you've had Rocky and how he's adjusting. We've been working with Ari and know it will take a lot of patience and time to get him to, possibly, be less aggressive towards my husband and daughter. So far, so good. We've had some great days and then some, ummm, less than great days with his acceptance. However, everything is going in the right directon. We see progress every day.
You've some beautiful macaws. You should be very proud.
Thanks, I think they are gorgeous. I do love my boys.
Rocky actually pulls off his downies and plucks his legs and under his wings. He also barbers his primary wing feathers a bit. He looks pretty good until he raises his wings. We've had Rocky since December, 2002. He hadn't been handled (willingly) in a while, but took a shine to me right away. Macaws tend to have a thing for me.
He bit the crap out of hubby the first day he was home. Hubby was trying to pat him. I didn't touch him for a couple of weeks, just talked to him and sang songs. He LOVES singing, even/especially mine. To Rocky, singing is a better reward than any kind of food item. After about a week, I offered my arm for him to step up, and he got nervous. I didn't push, but I offered him my arm every day. After a couple of weeks, he very cautiously stepped onto my arm, making little nervous noises the whole time. I stayed right near the door of his cage, and he got off quickly. It took some time before he was comfortable. Even now, he likes to be carried very close to my body so that he can sort of lean on me. If Jim his around, Rocky gets this really smug "ha-ha" kind of look and snuggles right up to me.
When we got him, he would constantly bite at his foot and make a nervous awking sound. That has basically stopped over the years. We'd been told he was a chronic screamer, but we had a brief honeymoon period before it started up. If you don't live with a chronic screamer and you think you know what it's like, you don't..... I would say that the screaming decreased as we really worked at ignoring it and being consistent. However, as his relationship with me got stronger, so did with his rage at Jim being allowed to draw breath in our house, the screaming is pretty horrible again. It's really hard, because in order to completely ignore his screaming, we're basically punishing the other 3 birds that live in the room with him. If Jim isn't around, the screaming decreases dramatically. If Rocky lived in an open space with a single person, he would be able to see 'his' person most of the time and would probably not scream at all.
He talks pretty well. He deliberately insults Jim. When Jim walks in, Rocky will say "Shuddup." or "Get away." or "You're a bad broom" (which the worst insult EVER in Rocky's eyes
) I get much sweeter stuff. Jim could give him filet mignon, and Rocky won't respond. If I give him fresh water, he says "Mmmmm, that's good!"
Mostly, he ignores Chico and Kirby annoys him. There's beaking and squawking and tail-pulling, but no real aggression. Kirby thinks they are playing, but Kirby has all the sensitivity of an unmanned Sherman tank, so....
He doesn't like to be patted, even by me. Sometimes he'll let me preen his head feathers, but having a hand around the back of his head makes him nervous. When he wants to hang with me, he'll walk over to me, climb on my foot and up my leg. He'll perch on my leg, my arm, or the arm of the couch. He doesn't want to be patted, he wants to whisper back & forth ("Hi, Are you a good boy? I love you. Gimme a kiss."
) or sing or get kisses on his face. When he's happy, he makes a high-pitched 'eek' noise. He rarely stays long, he climbs back down and goes back to what he was doing.
He prefers to be on the floor. He's nesty all year-round. He had a brief bro-mance with Chico and they made a lovely mess (I mean nest) under the tv one summer, but that didn't last. He's only bitten me once, and that's because I put my hand between his beak and Jim when he was going after Jim. I don't know a lot about his life before us. I know that he was neglected. Maybe worse, but I don't know that for sure. He gets PO'd and screams if I take his food and water bowls away. If I take the bowl out and replace it immediately, he doesn't scream - just if I walk away without putting something there right away. Does that mean he went without food & water at some point in his life and worries about it? Don't know. However, I also think that he has a high-strung, nervous personality and some of his behavior is just Rocky being Rocky.