Hungry Bird

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I’ve told you that Alex was one half of a pair of macaws that were up for adoption, and that he and the female Military macaw Sadie shared a cage in their old home. What I didn’t realize until about 6 months later was that he wasn’t getting enough food. When we went to see Alex and Sadie at KC’s the female was much larger than Alex. I didn’t think much of it at the time because in some bird species the male is the smaller of the two (I don’t know if that holds true for macaws or not, but it made sense to me!)
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After we got Alex home I noticed that he never let any of his food fall to the bottom of his cage. This is not normal parrot behavior, they may take a bite or two then toss the food and move on to the next morsel. Parrots are messy for a reason; in the wild they throw their food around as natures 're-germination' mechanism. It was quite a few months before he was sure enough about the food source to trust that he could act normally with his food. I just assumed that he didn’t get many fruits and veggies at his last home. I was wrong. Sadie had not been letting him get a fair share of the food when they were sharing a cage.
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We went to my brother’s house the following December for the family Christmas get-together. Of course I had to visit with Sadie. When I held her I realized that although she had seemed huge to me the first time I met her, she no longer was larger than Alex. In fact, he is now much larger than Sadie! KC had told me that she bullied Alex a little, but I had not realized it was to that extent. At 8 years old Alex should have been at his full size. If nothing else, this proves to me that birds should have their own cages and food bowls.
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Cathy