Wild and Rooted Blog

Category: Life With Parrots

Stories, observations, and lessons from living alongside our parrots — their personalities, care, routines, and the unique ways they shape daily life on the farm.

Macaw Mama — Part Three: The Messy Middle
Bogart and Jazz, a pair of twenty-seven year old bonded macaws.

Week two of adopting our bonded macaws has been hard.

The only way I can describe it is like living inside a Tom Hanks movie — equal parts The Green Mile and Forrest Gump. I have felt every emotion under the rainbow, and a few colors I didn’t know existed.

There have been beautiful days.

Days where Bo tracks the target stick around the cage, waits for the click, accepts his walnut piece, and repeats “achoo” after me three times in a row like we’re sharing an inside joke.

And then there have been the other days.

Mornings where I am greeted not with curiosity, but with a lunge.

When Adopted Parrots Begin Testing You

Around the two-week mark, something shifts in adopted parrots.

In the first few days of bringing home a rehomed parrot, they are often quiet, observant, almost polite. They are assessing. Surviving. Figuring out where they are.

Then, around week two, many parrots enter what behaviorists call the testing and defense phase of adaptation.

They realize: “This is not temporary.”

And that’s when the real emotions surface.

This is exactly where we are.

The Bonded Pair Dynamic

Bo and Jazz are a strongly bonded pair — a male green-winged macaw and a female blue-and-gold macaw who have lived together for years.

Bonded parrots share more than space. They share security, instinct, and territory.

Because they are temporarily housed in the same cage while we finish preparing their permanent space, that cage has effectively become a nest.

And nests are guarded.

Bo has decided that his job is to control access. He directs me with his beak — when I may approach, when I may change water bowls, even when I may pass. It’s not personal. It’s instinct.

Jazz, my quiet and stoic girl, emerged from her shell this week too — but not in the way I expected.

She began exploring the cabin for nesting material. Towels became treasure. She pulled one from a sawhorse, cooing softly while arranging it with her beak and claws. Bo joined her, of course.

It was adorable — until it wasn’t.

When it came time to remove the towel and guide her back to the cage, she charged. Wings spread. Beak forward. And even though she is technically “the smaller bird,” I was frozen on top of a chair while she guarded the floor below.

This is the moment where I understood something critical:

There is no disciplining a wild animal acting on instinct.

There is only management, understanding, and behavior adjustment — mostly mine.

Jazz finds towels to make a nest, while Bogart stands guard.

How Shared Caging Affects Adjustment

Research on adopted parrots moving into a new home shows that the adjustment timeline often follows predictable stages:

Week 1 — Shock & Observation
Eating. Watching. Assessing.

Weeks 2–4 — Testing & Territorial Defense
Lunging. Guarding. Hormonal behaviors. Bond reinforcement.

Weeks 4–8 — Decompression & Stability
Reduced guarding. Curiosity returns. Trust begins forming.

We are squarely in stage two.

Because Bo and Jazz are a bonded pair sharing a temporary cage, their territorial instincts are amplified. Shared housing in a new environment can unintentionally create a “them versus me” dynamic.

Instead of integrating into a new flock, they consolidate into each other.

The environment I created — unintentionally — reinforced nest behavior.

Jazz hunted for materials.
Bo guarded the perimeter.
I reacted defensively.
Trust dipped.

And the more I tried to regain control, the more control they attempted to assert.

It became a cycle.

The Emotional Toll of Parrot Adoption

The emotional whiplash has been real.

Great days followed by lunging.
Peaceful evenings followed by territorial mornings.
Jekyll and Hyde personalities that left me questioning everything.

I have felt:
- Hopeless
- Overwhelmed
- Physically unwell from stress
- Afraid I made a mistake
- Afraid they would never love me
No one talks enough about the emotional impact of adopting large parrots.

Macaws are intelligent, sensitive, hormonally complex, and deeply bonded creatures. When you adopt a bonded pair, you are not stepping into a blank slate — you are stepping into an established relationship.

That takes patience.

Bogart and Jazz work together to remove a food station from their cage.

What Is Going Right

Despite the chaos, there are strong signs of healthy adjustment.

They eat beautifully — fresh fruits, vegetables, pellets, and nuts used strategically for training.

Reducing high-fat nuts has already helped regulate hormonal behavior.

We increased their quiet, dark sleep time to minimize hormonal triggers.

They scream when I leave the room — which, in parrot language, is not rejection. It’s a contact call. Flock cohesion.

They are not fearful.

They are adapting.

Meanwhile, my husband and I are preparing their permanent space in the barn — painting with non-toxic paint, building their separate cages, hauling the massive java tree upstairs.

Stability is coming.

The Reality of the Two-Week Mark

Two weeks feels like forever when you are living it.

But in macaw time, two weeks is barely an introduction.

If the adaptive timeline holds true,

In the coming weeks we should see:
- Reduced territorial lunging
- Less nest-seeking behavior
- Increased curiosity
- More individual interaction
Not because we forced it.

But because consistency creates security.

Adopting bonded macaws is not about instant affection.

It’s about becoming steady enough that they choose you.

And right now, we are in the messy middle.

But we are, according to every piece of research I’ve read, right on schedule.

You can follow along as Bogart and Jazz continue settling into their new life and finding their rhythm here at Crooked Limb Farm. We’re sharing the real, unfiltered journey of bonding, setbacks, and small victories over on Instagram @RootedwithFeathers
February 22, 2026
Macaw Mama — Part Two: The Work Begins
Bogart and Jazz are doing well here.

But it isn’t all sunshine and roses.

The two-hour drive home, the unloading, the reassembling of their cage — it was all layered with exhaustion and adrenaline. They were as pliable and sweet as they had been when we first met them, almost as if we were all suspended in the same fragile bubble of transition.

But bubbles settle.

Because the opportunity to adopt them came before we were fully prepared, our first few days were filled with rapid adjustments — ordering larger cages, natural perches, a double java tree stand, toys strong enough to withstand beaks built to splinter wood. In the wild, macaws fly miles each day. They forage. They solve problems. They choose where to perch and when to retreat.

And here we were asking two twenty-seven-year-old rescue macaws to absorb a new home, new rhythms, new caretakers — all at once.

That kind of change doesn’t land quietly, especially when you’re transitioning adopted parrots into a new home environment.

Which brings me to training — specifically, how we begin positive reinforcement training with adopted macaws.

I believe deeply in training animals. Training is the bridge between species — not about control, but about clarity. It’s where expectations become visible, and where both sides slowly learn the rhythm of the other.

It is the space where the animal clearly understands what I’m asking, and where I begin to understand what they are ready — or not ready — to offer.

Bogart practicing the sound of a sneeze, “Achoo!”

My husband approaches animals with softness and openness. He leans toward freedom first. I lean toward structure. Somewhere between us, stewardship forms its shape.

In our home, I am the limiter of treats. The establisher of schedules. The one who sets boundaries.

Our ducks and geese understand this dynamic well. The shake of a tambourine means it’s time to single file into the duck house. A gentle “shoo” sets a boundary. The word “acorns” sends them reporting for pest control duty. We have an agreement.

If my husband tries to shoo them, they assume he’s playing. He laughs. I do not.

And now, I find myself mapping out that same kind of understanding with two macaws.

We’ve had real wins.

And we’ve had setbacks.

If I’m honest, some of those setbacks were mine.

Temporarily housing them together while we waited for larger cages likely added tension — something common when integrating bonded macaws into a new household. Introducing my phone too quickly certainly didn’t help — Bogart fluffs at the sight of it. And I moved too quickly with my hands, assuming that previous training would translate seamlessly into daily life with us.

It didn’t.

I’ve been bitten three times — each one a lesson in understanding macaw body language and boundary-setting.

The first was inside his cage while I was changing bowls. He wrapped his beak around my index finger and squeezed. Not full force — but firm enough to alter how I move.

The second was a calculated grab of my hair while he perched above me, a reminder that proximity does not equal permission.

The third was entirely my fault.

On day five, I introduced the clicker to begin pairing the sound with a reward — the foundation of clicker training for parrots. A click means a treat. Simple. Clear.

Except I clicked too close.

The sharp sound startled him. He dropped the treat and grabbed my fingers. The damage was negligible, but the message was not.

So I stepped back.
Bogart accepting a Nutri berry treat from a long teaspoon.
Jazz accepting a Nutri berry treat for a long teaspoon.
We are still clicker training, but for now I offer treats with a long spoon instead of my hand. A click means a treat — delivered calmly and predictably. When their larger cages arrive, they will be separated but side by side. They will still share communal time and enrichment, but individual space will allow individual relationships to grow — an important step when building trust with rescue parrots.

We will crawl before we walk. Walk before we jog.

Target training will come later. Advanced behaviors later still.

Right now, the work is quieter.

With adopted parrots — especially ones who have already lived long, full lives elsewhere — I try to hold a realistic timeline in my mind. The first stretch is simply about trust. Sometimes that begins to settle in a few weeks. Sometimes it takes six. Comfort, the kind that lets everyone exhale and move without bracing, often starts to appear somewhere around the two- to three-month mark. And true bonding — the steady, mutual understanding that isn’t built on novelty or food but on consistency — can take six months. A year. Occasionally more.

There is no shortcut through that unfolding. Only calm repetition. Clear signals. And the quiet accumulation of days in which nothing frightening happens and something small goes right.

So we are not behind.
We are simply at the beginning.

It is about trust. About mutual respect. About recognizing the difference between affection and access.

They are intelligent. They are communicative. And they are watching us just as closely as we are studying them.

In Part One, love opened the door.

Now, we begin the steady work of building something strong enough to last.

If you’d like to follow along as Bogart and Jazz settle into this next chapter of life as adopted macaws, you can find them on Instagram at @rootedwithfeathers, where the daily wins, lessons, and occasional side-eye are all part of the unfolding story.

Because love may bring them home —
but patience is what will keep us growing together.
February 12, 2026
Macaw Mama — Part One: When Good Intentions Take Root

Yesterday, I became a macaw mama.

My husband and I love our ducks and geese, and while there are plenty of charming animals that find their way onto farms, we both agreed our next addition would be something different. A parrot. So, on our anniversary, we took the first step toward parrothood and placed a deposit on a baby Hyacinth Macaw.

My husband has always loved Hyacinth macaws, and because we’re not fans of animals being alone, we planned for a companion as well. When it came to choosing that future partner, I waffled. Not because I didn’t want one—but because all macaws are beautiful, and I couldn’t decide whether a blue-and-gold or a green-wing would be the right fit. Each breeder we spoke with had a different opinion. Google had opinions. AI had opinions. None of them quieted the deeper question that kept resurfacing.

Our Baby Hyacinth Macaw: Zuli

Parrots are not casual commitments, especially when it comes to adopting macaws or other long-lived companion birds. They require time, attention, and specialized care. Their long lives mean that even when people begin with the best intentions, circumstances can change, and birds often outlive the stability that once surrounded them. I found myself thinking not just about bringing a parrot home, but about what happens to parrots when life unravels—and why rehoming parrots has become such a quiet necessity.

That’s when I began following the Exotic Avian Sanctuary of Tennessee on social media.

Not long after, the founder shared a rescue story that stopped me in my tracks.

A call had come in about a man who had been hospitalized and placed on a mental health hold. A family member, checking on his property, discovered birds living in his barn and feared they wouldn’t survive much longer. When photos were sent, it was immediately clear the situation was urgent.

The birds were housed in a small tack room inside a barn so cluttered with debris it was difficult to even reach the door. The air was heavy with mold and decay. Several cages were rusted shut—some so neglected they hadn’t been opened in years. Food and water had been poured in wherever there was space, layering old mold, waste, and time on top of one another.

What struck her most wasn’t just the physical neglect, but the silence. No singing. No chatter. Just birds who had lived long enough in isolation that they seemed to have accepted it.

Photo from Exotic Avian Sanctuary of Tennessee of the Goodlettsville 23 (G23) Rescue

In total, twenty-three birds were removed that day—budgies, doves, a pigeon, a cockatoo, an Amazon, and a hybrid macaw. They were relinquished into the care of the sanctuary, where they could finally rest, stabilize, and begin the slow work of healing.

That story stayed with me—not just as a tragedy, but as a quiet question I couldn’t unhear.

There were photos shared alongside the post, including one of a stunning miligold macaw. Something inside me pressed hard, urging me to reach out and ask about meeting him. But healing takes time, and the miligold needed emotional stability before anything else. So I tucked my hopes away, though adoption continued to whisper in the background of my heart.

Then, in the middle of this historic ice storm, I received an email from the founder of the sanctuary.

She asked if I would be interested in rehoming two macaws from a retiring farmer.

I didn’t hesitate to ask my husband what he thought. To my surprise, he was open—open to talking, to meeting, to seeing what this might look like.

On day nine, late Tuesday evening, our electricity was finally restored. By Friday, we had plans to meet Jazzy and Bobo.

Friday morning, I woke with a low hum of anxiety. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I worked hard to keep my expectations tempered. The one-hour-and-forty-minute drive stretched past two hours, the road somehow lengthening instead of closing the distance.

But when the barn door opened and I looked to my left, I saw them perched quietly on the rail.

And just like that, my heart swelled—full and immediate. It was instant love.

The fear of long-term commitment, the uncertainty of adopting older parrots—not one but two twenty-seven-year-old macaws who had lived more than half of my life already—it all fell away.

Before we left, standing there with the weight of the decision still settling in, I learned more of their story.

Jazzy and Bobo would be coming to us as they entered their third home.

Their first home had been with a woman who loved them deeply and cared for them for many years. When a new puppy joined her household, she made the difficult decision to limit their previously open access to explore outside their cage in order to keep them safe and secure. This necessary shift—from a home where they had enjoyed more freedom to one where they needed to remain safely caged—was made out of protection and responsibility. Over time, and due to her own health challenges, she recognized that they deserved a home where that freedom could be restored and their daily lives could expand again.

When they were eventually rehomed to the retiring farmer, their environment changed significantly. There, they experienced a more open daily rhythm—spending increased time outside their cages, engaging with visitors, enjoying outdoor misting, and becoming part of the gentle cadence of farm life.

That mattered to me. Not because it made this easier, but because it reminded me that animals, like people, carry the imprint of every life they’ve lived before they reach you.

In becoming their third home, I’m holding space for all of that history—and quietly hoping we might also be their last.

With that hope comes intention. As they begin this next chapter, Jazzy will become Jazz, and Bobo will return to Bogart. Not to erase who they’ve been, but to mark where they are now. A gentle shift. A way of saying: you’re here, and this life will be held with intention.

Animals seem to know when things are different. On instinct, Bobo—soon to return to Bogart—sidestepped closer to the wall and offered my husband a non-aggressive warning air bite as he excitedly reached out. My husband loves animals even more than I do, and the presence of a bird with jaws strong enough to require steel toys did nothing to deter him. He encouraged him to step up, beginning the slow work of trust.

A Careful First Meeting: Bogart Meets My Husband

I’m slower. I move at a snail’s pace when it comes to earning an animal’s affection. I prefer to let them find their way to me, to set the rhythm of our relationship. Together, I think my husband and I make a good pair of stewards.

Jazz, the blue-and-gold, and my husband became smitten almost immediately. She responded to him in her own macaw language, and somehow they seemed to understand one another—even if, to outsiders, their words sounded nothing alike.

When it was time for Bogart and me, I felt the warmth of his small palm against my hand—something entirely new. He gave me a once-over, then stepped back onto the rail, maintaining eye contact as he moon-walked backward until I had to stop him from tumbling off the edge.

It’s hard to separate animals from the people who love them, and I know that day was heavy for the farmer. We felt something similar when we had to rehome our turkeys after the waterfowl began bullying them. Even though they went to a friend’s regenerative farm just down the road, my husband still carries a quiet ache from that decision.

I tried to offer the kind of reassurance I wish I’d had then—to let her know this wasn’t a goodbye, but an until.

The ride home felt just as long as the drive there, but for entirely different reasons.

This time, the backseat wasn’t empty.

We brought them home carrying decades of history we didn’t yet know how to hold.

Love may have opened the door—but the real work was only beginning.

As they begin this next chapter, we’ll be sharing glimpses of Bogart’s and Jazz’s life here on Instagram at @rootedwithfeathers.

February 7, 2026