Advise needed - illiger mini macaw

[Diem]

Hi all,

While this is my first post, I would't consider myself a novice parrot owner, having had 2 african greys and a white fronted amazon in the past.

This time a cute illiger macaw arrived two days ago in our house. He looks healthy, he (or she, dont really know) is hand reared and tame and looks in good shape. Reckon he is around one year old.

The problem is that he is doing vocalization (a sound like a squeak from a toy, or a horn), for too long during the day (irrespective if I am around or not). The squeak sound, although at a moderate level, far from scream I would say, lasts for one second, but it is repeated countless times.

The seller told me he was relatively quiet in his big cage, where he lived with alexandrine and other parrots for the last year or so.

Any idea why the bird is doing this sound repeatedly for so long?

 

[Laurasea]

Sorry I don't know. But this article had some good advice for stress. Even though you have experience, as do I , I found some goo tips. I recently did a real flock observations, and discover issues I didn't know I had
Your baby might need some supplemental warm food offerings..they often regress in a new home, and parental care is often far longer than any of us do..
Gotta go get the link
https://lafeber.com/pet-birds/stress-reduction-for-parrot-companions/
Oh and congratulations! Welcome to the forum!! With a lot of traffic here some threads get missed! I hope you stick around share your knowledge and all about your new birdie!!

 

[Diem]

Hi Laurasea, thank you for your reply. The link contains good info indeed. I am a bit confused weather the repeated sounds are due to stress or not, since he eats a lot and plays around with toys.

Also, is there any way to distinguish the gender visually?

 

[Laurasea]

Hi Diem,
Don't think anyone knows your new! As you posted under Macs, we are a fteindly bunch do they would all have welcomed you.
As for stress, ahhh let's see, your new one was moved to a new place, metting new people and all of her birdie freinds were left behind, and no one told her this was going to happen I think there is some stress. I don't know if the contact calls are for you, or for the other birds..

I used this DNA service I think, print a piece of paper, clip a tornsil get a little blood, this k I got results crazy fast!!! https://vetdnacenter.com/dna-tests/avian-dna-testing/

 

[Laurasea]

Bump

 

[Diem]

Thanks Laurasea!

 

[Laurasea]

How's your new FID today?

 

[Diem]

She still does the calls, although with bigger intervals of quiteness now. When no one is around she stops calling after a few minutes. She was living in a cage with 5 more parrots, so probably the calls are for her friends she left behind. Will see...

 

[itzjbean]

She still does the calls, although with bigger intervals of quiteness now. When no one is around she stops calling after a few minutes. She was living in a cage with 5 more parrots, so probably the calls are for her friends she left behind. Will see...

This sounds about right if she was around other birds in the past. Do you talk to her? Perhaps you could try talking softly to her for a while or singing.

 

[SilleIN]

She still does the calls, although with bigger intervals of quiteness now. When no one is around she stops calling after a few minutes. She was living in a cage with 5 more parrots, so probably the calls are for her friends she left behind. Will see...

This sounds about right if she was around other birds in the past. Do you talk to her? Perhaps you could try talking softly to her for a while or singing.

I would also guess (s)he is calling for her friends. It would be great if you could help "him" through this fase. It would help if he gets introduced to the entire place and let him see, that there are no other birds for him to call to. Also an initial calling shouldn't turn into a bad habit, so if you are able to distract him from continuing, that would be great. A great distraction, I find, is a large piece of wood, with holes drilled into it and any natural nutbutter put into the holes. That keeps them busy for hours on end. Hopefully that will get his mind of calling for his friends, at least for a while.