My macaw vomits

Question
I'm hoping to find out why my Blue & Gold vomits when there seems to be no reason for it.  He is about seven years old and is a happy bird.  In the last year I have noticed him playing with his hanging ropes in the cage and someitmes he will hold the rope on one hand and continually tap it with his beak.  After a little while he vomits.  He does this in a playful way and I can see how he gets sick since his motion with the rope is the same as when he was fed as a baby, the thing is I don't know why he does this.  This morning I looked at him and he was sitting quietly, not playing with his rope.  Moments later I heard him vomiting.  This time it didn't seem to be self induced although I wasn't watching him too closely.  It's not a constant thing, but he tends to get sick once every couple months or so and it all started about a year ago.  His main diet is Exact parrot feed and I am carefull of the kind of people food I give him.  Everything else about him is normal.  It may not make a difference in all this but I don't really know his gender.  He is larger with a longer tail than other known females so I have assumed he is male.  He doesn't get car sick either so he isn't sensitive that way.
Do you have any ideas?

Answer
Don't worry, this is a very normal behavior.  Parrots would naturally regurgitate to their mates, and in a captive setting they often transfer this behavior to their toys or their owners.  Everything you describe is typical of the behavior, including the way he bobs on his rope as if he were a feeding baby.  In pairs of parrots, one will bob and be fed and the other will regurgitate.  Both sexes may take both roles, and a pair may take turns, but in my experience the males do more actual regurgitation while the females are more likely to bob and beg.  Neither this or your macaw's larger size and longer tail guarantee his sex, but it's a pretty good guess to say he's male.

This kind of regurgitation is not actual vomiting since the food comes up from the crop, not the stomach.  Birds very rarely vomit, and when they do it's usually obvious that they're sick - they act nervous and bring the food up quickly, not deliberately, and flick their heads to get rid of it.  It usually smells like vomit, too, where deliberately regurgitated food from the crop doesn't.  (You may have noticed!)  True vomiting is a reason for concern - if it happens just once, it was probably just something they ate, but if it continues it's a sign of illness.

Anyway, regurgitation is a perfectly normal behavior, and I'm not surprised to hear it started recently with your bird, since it often shows up around the time a bird becomes sexually mature.  Just be grateful he hasn't (so far) decided to regurgitate for you rather than his rope!

- Lara
psitta@yahoo.com