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New Additions 2022

April

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He did a number on my thumb. I have numbness up to the tip and it’s slowly turning purple. Live and learn I guess. He got a nice bit of hemp added to his chop this morning.
Yikes I'm so sorry that he tagged you so badly.
 

BrianB

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Our baby green-wing is doing much better. I was concerned it wasn't growing as fast as it should be, but I think it has almost caught up to where it should be. I looked at a green-wing growth chart and it's just a little behind. The chart shows an average of 12 chicks were at 59 grams when they were 12 days old. The little one is at 48 grams and is 10 days old today. Not too far off and the weight is increasing quickly now. The picture is just after being fed and before I wiped the face and feet off. Freya came in for grooming yesterday. The last time she was was going through a rough molt and looked pretty ragged. She was beautiful this time, and she let me scratch her head. I love seeing her all grown up and thriving.

There are at least 2 red-fronted macaw chicks that are between 2 and 3 weeks old that should probably come out of the nest today. Mom and dad won't let me get a good look at them and I don't want to disturb them more than I need to. I think I'm going to pull the nest box down and put a camera in the top of it as I did with the Eclectus. That will give me a better idea of what's going on in there.

Chewie is still being rough with me. He did let me scratch the top of his head through the door, but otherwise, he's still really bipolar with me. He says Hi Chewie to me when I go out there, but when I walk by the cage he will lunge at me. I've started ignoring the behavior when he lunges. I have to walk back and forth in front of his cage as I go around and feed other birds. After walking past his cage a few times and not looking at him or reacting when he lunged at me he stopped. He went to the back of the cage and postured at me, but didn't make any attempt to lunge and I walked by again. Baby steps, but I'm sad that he's so angry with me. I should have read his body language better and realized he was so angry. I'm going to save the picture of the bite he gave me. I interact with people who want a macaw but haven't done any research on them and really have no idea what they are getting into. They just want a big and pretty bird that talks, but don't understand exactly how much damage that beak can do. The bite on my thumb seems to have been more damaging. The bruise is colorful and part of my thumb has gone numb. The bite on my arm is really just superficial to the skin.


IMG_6206 2.jpeg
 

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April

Joyriding the Neighborhood
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Our baby green-wing is doing much better. I was concerned it wasn't growing as fast as it should be, but I think it has almost caught up to where it should be. I looked at a green-wing growth chart and it's just a little behind. The chart shows an average of 12 chicks were at 59 grams when they were 12 days old. The little one is at 48 grams and is 10 days old today. Not too far off and the weight is increasing quickly now. The picture is just after being fed and before I wiped the face and feet off. Freya came in for grooming yesterday. The last time she was was going through a rough molt and looked pretty ragged. She was beautiful this time, and she let me scratch her head. I love seeing her all grown up and thriving.

There are at least 2 red-fronted macaw chicks that are between 2 and 3 weeks old that should probably come out of the nest today. Mom and dad won't let me get a good look at them and I don't want to disturb them more than I need to. I think I'm going to pull the nest box down and put a camera in the top of it as I did with the Eclectus. That will give me a better idea of what's going on in there.

Chewie is still being rough with me. He did let me scratch the top of his head through the door, but otherwise, he's still really bipolar with me. He says Hi Chewie to me when I go out there, but when I walk by the cage he will lunge at me. I've started ignoring the behavior when he lunges. I have to walk back and forth in front of his cage as I go around and feed other birds. After walking past his cage a few times and not looking at him or reacting when he lunged at me he stopped. He went to the back of the cage and postured at me, but didn't make any attempt to lunge and I walked by again. Baby steps, but I'm sad that he's so angry with me. I should have read his body language better and realized he was so angry. I'm going to save the picture of the bite he gave me. I interact with people who want a macaw but haven't done any research on them and really have no idea what they are getting into. They just want a big and pretty bird that talks, but don't understand exactly how much damage that beak can do. The bite on my thumb seems to have been more damaging. The bruise is colorful and part of my thumb has gone numb. The bite on my arm is really just superficial to the skin.


View attachment 409352
Oh my goodness that little one is so precious! I'm so sorry about your bites though. I really hope that your thumb heals well and you don't have any permanent damage to it.
 

BrianB

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Oh my goodness that little one is so precious! I'm so sorry about your bites though. I really hope that your thumb heals well and you don't have any permanent damage to it.
Oddly enough, this wasn’t the most painful but I’ve had. This is the most damage I’ve had from a bird but the most painful one was from a little sulfur created cockatoo. If I didn’t love birds I wouldn’t do it.
 

rocky'smom

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WOW you got tagged hard OUCHIE. That is one thing I am truly grateful for I never got brutally tagged as volunteer. There were some pretty hard pinches though. The worst one was the day I wore shorts to work. Charlie the green wing pinched the heck out of my upper thigh left a bruise the size of coffee cup. She was quite upset that whole day about something unforseen by any of us humans. She got me, Nicky and Andrea with bad pinches.
Hope your arm and thumb recover quickly.
 

BrianB

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Baby steps. Chewie let me scratch his head this afternoon. When I closed the cage door he lunged at me so I gave him a look, then turned my back on him and walked away. He started yelling out "HELLO!" but I didn't respond. When I came back later he was a little more contrite and didn't lunge at me.

We went to pull the oldest red-fronted macaw chick this morning and discovered that all 4 eggs have hatched. Three were a struggle for them to feed last year so we made the choice to pull all of them. We've got 5 baby macaws in the brooder at the moment. The African greys are bigger so we moved them out into a tub that we use as a brooder. They are moving around quite a bit now and I can't take the chance of a baby mac getting squashed by one.
 

SumitaSinh

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Baby steps. Chewie let me scratch his head this afternoon. When I closed the cage door he lunged at me so I gave him a look, then turned my back on him and walked away. He started yelling out "HELLO!" but I didn't respond. When I came back later he was a little more contrite and didn't lunge at me.

We went to pull the oldest red-fronted macaw chick this morning and discovered that all 4 eggs have hatched. Three were a struggle for them to feed last year so we made the choice to pull all of them. We've got 5 baby macaws in the brooder at the moment. The African greys are bigger so we moved them out into a tub that we use as a brooder. They are moving around quite a bit now and I can't take the chance of a baby mac getting squashed by one.
I can't even imagine how busy you are at this moment! It must be like our internship days with labour room duty :lol: Waiting for more baby pics.
 

BirdyDarby

Meeting neighbors
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Its crazy to think that a naked blob of flesh will soon become a beautiful parrot. Glad to hear that the baby is pulling through! People seem to always overlook just how powerful a bird's beak is, especially the bigger guys like cockatoos and macaws; macaws are, quite literally, toddlers that can fly and have a knife attached to their face haha. I'll always prefer to be bitten by a macaw over a cockatoo, cockatoos seem to be out for blood more often than a tiffed macaw!
 

BrianB

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Its crazy to think that a naked blob of flesh will soon become a beautiful parrot. Glad to hear that the baby is pulling through! People seem to always overlook just how powerful a bird's beak is, especially the bigger guys like cockatoos and macaws; macaws are, quite literally, toddlers that can fly and have a knife attached to their face haha. I'll always prefer to be bitten by a macaw over a cockatoo, cockatoos seem to be out for blood more often than a tiffed macaw!
The transformation is unreal. In some ways, it's like raising a child that takes 6 months to go from a helpless infant to a young adult that moves away from home. There are a lot of the same steps along the way. A fussy infant, then a cranky toddler prone to temper tantrums. A baby macaw having a temper tantrum is hysterical. Then there is the defiant teenager who tries your patience on a daily basis, and the young adult that is ready to leave home and it makes you cry when they do.

We're both tired, but managing. We expected it to be a busy year with baby macaws, but we didn't factor the greys into the mix. I'm glad we don't have any baby Eclectus right now.

The cockatoo bite I got did very little damage to my skin, but he seemed to know exactly where to grab me to cause the most intense pain. I had a small bruise on the webbing between my thumb and index finger, but it hurt for several days.
 

BirdyDarby

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Worst spot in my experience to get nailed is definitely the finger webbing, for such a minor part of the hand it sure is sensitive! I've yet to get a scar from a parrot bite but the pain sure does remain fresh in my brain. Baby birds incoming is always exciting, despite how exhausting it can be to raise em'. Fulfilling work, but still work haha. I'm excitingly awaiting the day my spot on your greenwing waiting list comes up, it was an absolute joy to raise my electus. I get parrot baby fever rather than human baby fever! Now that I'm all settled in my new house and have everything ready to go, its just the waiting part thats biting me lol.
 

BrianB

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Our baby green wing has hit its stride for growing. We're up to 6 or 7 ml per feeding and now over 70 grams in weight. For a while, one of the baby red-fronted was heavier, but that only lasted about 2 days.

I went to the hematologist yesterday and got a lot of strange looks about the large, but fading bruise on my right arm. They know I prefer to do blood draws from the right arm because it's easier, but this time I asked them to use the left arm. The right one has been worked over recently, and parts of the skin are still somewhat numb. Chewie has been better. We've worked up to head-scratching and he did step up for me, but I immediately put him back on a perch in his cage. He's not lunging at me when I walk past, but sometimes his energy is a little much for me so I back off until he calms down a little. I'm wondering if it wasn't jealousy for Christopher that caused him to bite me. He really likes the guy who cleans cages for me during the week. He dances and talks up a storm to him while he's here. Maybe me trying to get him to step up when he had been with the other guy was what set it off. Who knows.
 

BrianB

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Five happy babies with full tummies. The baby green wing has hit 120 grams and the baby red-fronted is just a few grams behind.

IMG_6311.jpeg
 

April

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BrianB

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I guess Chewie has forgiven me. He stepped up for me today and I was able to take him out of his cage. He lifted his wing for me to scratch him, and then tried to regurgitate on his foot. He also let me scratch under his bottom beak, something he seems to love like a dog getting its chin scratched. I may not ever know what really set him off, but I think it's one of two things, both related to jealousy. Christopher was there and I was holding her. I only hold Chewie and Christopher is always on her stand. I've never held her in front of him. Maybe being in that new environment with all those kids, and me not holding Chewie was enough to anger him and cause him to bite me. The other possibility is the other guy who was there. He cleans cages for me once a week in addition to being an employee at the store. Chewie adores him and they have a lot of fun on the days when he cleans for me. He talks to Chewie and dances with him while he's cleaning his cage. I'm not home when this happens, so maybe there is more to their bond than I know of. Having been put on the stand and then seeing me handing Christopher to someone else before trying to pick him up might have done it. Either way, we're back to keeping that big beak at a distance. He can be on my arm, or on my leg when I'm sitting, but no more climbing up to my chest and never on my shoulder again. I will miss him climbing onto my chest and putting his head under my chin so I could scratch him.

He destroyed another perch this week. This time it was a smaller one near his food dish. I'm going to replace that one with a stone one. He only uses it when he's eating or trying to drown himself in his water dish. I have one more to put across his cage and when he destroys that one I'll move to maple. After that, I'm not sure what I'll do for him. Maybe I will start selling them as Chewie Custom Vampire Stakes.
 

BirdyDarby

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More and more evidence to suggest that Chewie is the bird version of a jealous girlfriend lol. Considering today's world, Chewie's Custom Vampire Stakes could probably make a selling! At least he's moving out of that aggression spike now instead of later, despite the chaos he's caused to your poor body. I've never been comfortable with birds on my shoulder for that exact reason, even the little guys; I can love and trust them to death, but I don't want a sharp multitool right by my eyeballs haha.
 

BrianB

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Ruby the red-fronted that I was watching in January is back with us for a while. It's a sad situation and might be a permanent surrender this time. I can't keep her long-term, but I have a plan if her mom has to truly give her up. She isn't one of my babies, but she was a chick at the bird store in 2019. She's known me her whole life and while she loves her momma like no one else, I'm a close second. I'm running a home for wayward birds.

IMG_6329.jpeg
 

SumitaSinh

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Ruby the red-fronted that I was watching in January is back with us for a while. It's a sad situation and might be a permanent surrender this time. I can't keep her long-term, but I have a plan if her mom has to truly give her up. She isn't one of my babies, but she was a chick at the bird store in 2019. She's known me her whole life and while she loves her momma like no one else, I'm a close second. I'm running a home for wayward birds.

View attachment 409722
I wish I could have her.... She's so sweet!
 

Tyrion

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so cute babies :D
 

BrianB

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Our little greenwing is just shy of 200 grams and putting on about 30 grams a day. It is 3 weeks old today. Still smaller than Freya was at this age, but she was parent fed for the first 15 days of her life. The biggest red-fronted is about 160 grams and being quickly left behind. They are all in the brooder, but it won't be too long before the greenwing will have to be moved out into something else. It will be too big and a danger to the smaller ones.

IMG_6347.jpeg
 
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