A macaw makes guessing expensive
A macaw is a big, strong, long-lived bird with strong opinions about his food and a digestive system that does not forgive experiments. At a boarding facility, the risk is rarely malice — it is a kind helper topping up an empty tub with whatever the facility feeds its other parrots, or offering a toy from the communal box because he looked bored. Your labelling system has one job: make the right thing the easiest thing, and make it obvious that nothing outside the system is on the menu. Every label should answer three questions without you: what is it, how much, and when.
Labels a stranger can follow at a glance
Portion his food into tubs before he goes, one per meal where you can, and label each lid with the food, the amount in everyday terms — a level scoop, half a tub, three pieces — and the day and meal it belongs to. Colour-code the lids or the tape by meal, one colour for breakfasts, another for evening feeds, so a busy boarder can grab the right tub without reading anything at all. Pack one extra sealed portion of each staple, clearly marked as the spare, because tubs get dropped, spilled, and occasionally left in the sun, and the spare is what stops a well-meaning substitute from appearing in his bowl. Fresh items that cannot be pre-portioned go on a short shopping-and-serving note with the same colour coding, naming exactly what to buy and how to prepare it — washed, chopped, seeds removed — rather than leaving the interpretation to the facility.
Toys get a list, not a free-for-all
Send his own toys from home — the familiar ones he already works on — and photograph each one for a printed or phone-shared list the boarder can check against. Note beside each photo how he uses it and what worn-out looks like, because a macaw reduces toys to splinters as a hobby and the boarder needs to know which pieces to remove and when a toy is finished. State plainly that no facility toys, shared toys, or donated extras are to be added, however kind the impulse: unfamiliar toys can carry other birds' germs, parts sized wrong for a macaw's beak, or materials he has never been allowed. If he has one comfort object he sleeps near, flag it as never to be removed or washed during the stay.
One page of never-offer, in plain sight
Finish the system with a single short list, kept with the tubs, of what must never reach his beak. Name the genuine dangers that turn up in facility kitchens and treat bowls — avocado and chocolate are toxic to parrots, and fruit stones and apple seeds are not treats — alongside his personal exclusions: anything he is not fed at home, however standard it is for other birds. Keep the list short enough to be read; a page of forty banned items protects nobody. Then make the whole system portable: put the tub list, toy photos, and never-offer page into his KinsLe Care Pass so the boarder has temporary, clear access to the same routine you packed by, and can check a label against it from their phone at feeding time.