What Should I Feed a Macaw? The Perfect Daily Diet for a Happy, Healthy Macaw
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a Blue and Gold macaw’s stare, you’ll know these birds don’t mess around and neither should their diet. Macaws are big, bold, intelligent parrots with equally big nutritional needs. Feed them right, and you’ll have a vibrant, enriched bird with glossy feathers and good behaviour. Feed them wrong, and you risk all sorts of problems from weight gain and liver issues, feather plucking to serious long-term health issues and the unbearable never ending screaming.
What do macaws eat in the wild?
In the wild, macaws enjoy an incredibly varied menu. They spend their days flying over rainforests, riverbanks, and savannahs, cracking open nuts, stripping seeds from plants, nibbling fresh fruits, and even eating clay from riverbeds to help neutralise toxins from their diet. Their wild feeding habits are a perfect reminder that these birds need variety, activity, and nutrient-rich food to truly thrive in captivity.
What is a good feeding routine for a macaw?
A good feeding routine for your macaw should start in the morning with fresh food. Offer a big, colourful variety of vegetables, think leafy greens, peppers, carrots, squash, sweetcorn, beans, and anything else you can get your hands on that’s fresh, seasonal, and safe for parrots. Add in a small portion of fruit for extra flavour and vitamins, choosing low-sugar options like berries, pomegranate, or kiwi most days, and saving sweeter fruits like grapes and mango as occasional treats. (Warning, grapes are little sugar bombs and can have quite unbelievably negative effects on behaviour!)
This is also the perfect time to add some sprouted seeds, such as our Foraging Feast Sprouting Mix, which is packed with nutrient-dense, living foods that boost your macaw’s immune system and gut health. Fresh herbs, edible flowers, and even a sprinkle of calcium bentonite clay once a week can round off the morning meal beautifully.
How many nuts should a macaw eat each day?
Macaws have a well-earned reputation for loving their nuts, and in this case, it’s a good thing. Unlike African Greys, who can be fussy or even indifferent about nuts, macaws generally adore them and can handle a higher proportion in their diet thanks to their active nature and higher fat needs (but not too many, they're still not flying hundreds of kilometres a day like they would in the wild!) Walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds, pecans, and pine nuts are all excellent choices, and they double up as the perfect high-value training treat. Pine nuts specifically are the perfect size when offering as positive reinforcement, base any other nuts sizes on the size of a pine nut, the treat size when training should be very small! The trick is to keep nuts as rewards or foraging challenges, rather than filling a bowl with them and letting your bird binge.
What is dry mix for macaws?
Evenings are best suited to a dry meal. A combination of a high-quality seed mix like our Soothing Seed Mix or Happy Gut Seed Mix, paired with a nutrient-rich dry mix such as our Soothing Dry Mix, creates the perfect pellet-free dinner that keeps your macaw interested and nourished. Serving seeds and dry mix lets you tailor portions and avoid doubling up on certain nutrients, something that happens if you mix seeds with pellets. If you do choose pellets, there are lots to choose from, and not all are created equally. Avoid mixing any pellets with seed mix, as most pellets are made from a variety of seeds anyway.
The key to feeding a macaw is to keep it as colourful, textured, and varied as possible. No parrot should live on the same three ingredients every day for decades, and macaws in particular will let you know if they’re bored, usually by turning their beak to your furniture or upsetting the neighbours with the songs of their people. By offering a balanced mix of fresh foods, sprouts, seeds, dry mixes, and nuts in thoughtful amounts, you’ll be mimicking their wild diet as closely as possible and setting them up for a long, healthy, happy life.
How can I make mealtimes interesting for my macaw?
Your macaw’s meals should never just be food in a bowl. Make them work for it, scatter feed, hide food in foraging toys, put bowls in hard to reach places and encourage them to use that incredible beak for what nature intended. Not only will they get the nutrition they need, but you’ll also keep them mentally stimulated and far less likely to develop bad habits.
If you want to skip the guesswork, The Aviary’s range of seed mixes, dry mixes, sprouting seeds, and herbal teas are all designed with variety, enrichment, and species-specific nutrition in mind. Everything is made in small batches from human-grade ingredients, with no artificial additives, so your macaw gets the best of the best, just as they deserve.