Hi.  I'm Jessi and we're at Animal Wonders.  Today, we're going to check in with our two macaws, Joy the blue and gold macaw and Scarlet the green winged macaw, and I'm going to reveal a new project that we've been working on.

(Intro)

Before we go see them, here's a little background on Joy and Scarlet.  Joy has been with us since 2014 and as far as we know, she's never been housed with another bird.  Scarlet came to us just four months ago and we're still getting to know her and our hope is that Joy and Scarlet will become friends and be able to live together as bonded companions.  

We started introducing these two a couple months ago and we did that by slowly letting them see each other and eventually, moved them into enclosures with a shared wall.  The enclosure we have them in right now is too small to house them permanently.  The only reason we have them in there is just for the introduction process, so we've been working on a new project where Joy and Scarlet can live out their lives in comfort together.  Let's go check it out.

Guys, we got them hanging perches, and this is just the first step of the project.  We're going to make them an entire jungle gym.  Get it?  Jungle, 'cause they're from the jungle?  Joy and Scarlet are going to get more perches to climb and play on as they get more comfortable being in an open area instead of being in a typical barred cage.  

We're building their new space in stages so that I can see what their reaction is to different situations and make adjustments and improvements that will benefit them the most.  Basically, I'm letting them lead me in this new adventure.  

We started this project by first getting them on standing perches for a couple hours a day.  I wanted to see how they would react to the new room but most importantly, how they would interact with each other in a free contact situation.  At first, they were very nervous about the new space, and they stuck to the tops of their perches, ignoring each other, but after a couple days, they started to interact with each other.  It went fairly well, but Joy was pretty nervous about Scarlet coming too close, and she reacted defensively.

I think the main issue in this interaction is that Scarlet has very poor coordination on perches and was spooking Joy with all of her clumsiness.  In the few months that we've had Scarlet, she's preferred to hang on the bars of her enclosure instead of perching on the branches, and I think she's done this her entire life.  This has probably led to the weak muscles in her feet.  

If that is the case, then I'm very excited to be able to offer her a more natural way of moving like a macaw should, but the only wa to strengthen these muscles is to continue to have her out of her enclosure and on open perching. 

Once these guys were used to the new room and being perched next to each other, we moved to the next step, which is these hanging perches.  They move, they sway and rotate, which requires another level of strength and coordination.  I chose not to have them too close to each other, because I wanted Joy and Scarlet to get used to this experience before having to interact with each other directly.

Scarlet still needs more time strengthening her feet muscles and getting comfortable on a perch like this.  Joy is also finding the movement unsettling.  I doubt she'd ever had an experience like this before in her life.  

They've only been on the hanging perches for about two weeks and I think they're doing great.  The next step is to create a few more layers of climbing, so they can reach up and grab on with their beaks.  I'd also like to add a few more different textures of wood and maybe some rope, and pretty soon, here you go, I'm going to create bridge between the two perches so that Joy and Scarlet can interact if they want.

I'm so excited that we're able to give Joy and Scarlet this experience and I can't wait to see where they take me on this new adventure.   Thanks for letting me share.  If you have any questions about the perches or want to know more about Joy and Scarlet's history, I've put a link to some of their previous videos and a link to where we got the perches in the description.  Let me know if you have any other questions in the comments.  Thanks, and we'll see you next week.

(Endscreen/Credits)