Hi Kim, and welcome to the group.  I have a severe macaw, one of the larger mini's.  She's a bundle of energy, and a ball of fire.  Also a part-time crocodile when she gets excited, but that seems to be less and less as she's gotten older. 

 

I've never had any really young birds, so I don't know the correct answer to when they should be placed in a cage, but I would think that if your baby is coming home in a few weeks it should already be learning how to perch.  Hopefully someone with a lot more knowledge of little ones can help on that.  How old is the baby?  That would help.

 

Welcome again, there are lots of mini macaw owners on the list, so amongst all of us you should be able to get a lot of your questions answered, or be pointed in the right direction to find the information.

 

Pictures aren't mandatory, but none of us can resist looking at baby pictures.

 

 

 

Thank you so much for such a warm welcome.  I am so excited that I found somewhere to ask questions, and get information.  I have posted a couple of pictures on this site of the baby.  The breeder emailed them to me today.  2 of them are pics from just after she was born, and the rest were actually taken this morning he said.  I guess the baby will be 10 weeks old tomorrow, he or she was born on christmas morning. I don't know what "kind" of mini he or she is, maybe one or some of you could tell me, by looking at the pics??  I am relativley new to the parrot world.  I have had cockatiels in the past, and hand fed a few babies but that is the extent of it.   I have been going trough all my old copies of "bird talk" magainzines to try and find some info on severe macaws, but can't find much.  I can't even find much on the internet.   Again, thank you all so much for being so friendly, and not making me feel stupid, with my questions.        You all rock.!!!!!            I am going to need a name for this new baby.............maybe you can all help me out with that too??LOL  

OOPS...........sorry, the baby is a severe macaw.   see, told you I am a newbie....LOL.

I tried to post what would've been a novel here earlier and MSN ate it .  Severe macaw I can tell you a little bit about, since we're owned and gnawed on by Ms Shasta.  I was like you, couldn't find much on the internet that gave information on them.  They don't seem to be very popular as far as minis go, part of it may be because they're a little high strung, or at least Shasta is.  I know a lot of what I've read about them states that they need more experienced owners, but I'm not sure that's really true based on our experiences.

 

We brought her home from the breeder for the second time when she was about 18 weeks old, and she was still on one handfeeding.  The short story is, please don't bring your baby home before it is fully weaned--it's much better for both of you if you wait until it is eating solid foods really well.  The pictures of your little one are really great--did you notice that in each one the baby has a part of the human body in it's beak?  Get used to that, because if your little one is like Shasta, beaking is a way of life.  My fingers go in her beak quite a bit, and she even puts her own toes in her beak so I'm not sure if it's a severe thing or I just have a little thumb sucker (that's what it looks like, like she's sucking her thumb if she had one)

 

I have a gazillion Shasta stories that I can relate to you but it would take up all of the board's space, and keep in mind that I only have one so I can't speak for all severe macaws.  I can tell you what we did that we probably shouldn't have, and things we did that seemed to be the right things but your baby will be an individual and (hopefully) a lot won't apply to your situation.  I know I'm not the only one with a severe, so when you have questions you should be able to get pointed in the right direction.