What do you do with your birds when you go away?

[bmsweb]

In October my son and I will be competing in the Australian National Taekwondo open and we will be away for about 8-10 days. When we did this last year we had the one budgie and my sister would visit him and take care of food and water (every second day).

We now have 3 cages, Budgie, Cockatiel and the Conures. I'm actually thinking of taking them all and their cages to my wife's parents home and leaving them their. I'm interested to know what the rest of you do.

[Natacha]

My birds go to my parents house, since they happen to know how to take care of them properly, given they have birds of their own.

I used to have to bring a cage for those being birdsat (at the time I only had Shade and Piper and Joey) but now, my mom's got extra cages there that I can use.

[skeetersunconure]

the place i got skeeter from named tweeters and peepers which is just a small buisness thay take the birds home every night and with them and take very good care of them so they also offerpet sitting and skeeter boy just gos to their house and gets to hang out on the sun porch with other parrots he loves it there haha

[lzver]

The longest we have ever left the birds was for 7 days a few years ago for our honeymoon. I hated doing it, but my mom came and checked on them every day. Needless to say they weren't too happy with us when we got back.

Lately, the longest we'll leave them is for a weekend - so usually 2 - 3 days max. Our neighbor is great and she comes by twice a day to check on them and give them fresh food and water when we are away. My husband cuts their lawn in the summer and shovels their driveway in the winter, so in return, they don't mind bird sitting for us. I figure this is less stressful on them than taking them somewhere unfamiliar.

[Michael]

I just got back from a 12 day trip and the parrot was nothing but thrilled to see me back. My brother came daily and let her out for an hour to fly and changed food/water. For me the biggest problem was that he let Kili get away with anything and I came back to find her so terribly behaved and rambunctious. I think between the intensified molt, free feed, and the fact that he just let her go anywhere, now she is being really annoying. She'll help herself to places she never dreamed of going when I was around. So still recuperating from the untraining. But healthwise she was just fine and I have no problem leaving her for up to 2 weeks at a time and will continue doing so from time to time. I've been careful since her childhood to balance together and apart time and teach her not to be too needy.

You shouldn't worry too much about leaving your small parrots for a while. I think it's only the bigger ones that really go insane in the absence of their owner (greys, toos). But while you have time, you can practice by ignoring them for a few days straight and see how they do or going away for a weekend. Be sure to teach whoever stays with them all the ins and outs. I wrote a manual for taking care of Kili and leave it with whoever watches her. They don't necessarily have to read it up front but it's a resource in case something happens and in most likelihood they can find the answer to the issue in there.

[MandyG]

I was away for almost two weeks a couple of months ago. My sister was nice enough to come by twice a day to check on my Amazon. She gave him fresh food and water every day and once he was used to her (and lonely enough to want to behave to get some human interaction) she would let him out for a few hours each day. She also left the radio on for a couple of hours a day between her morning visit and afternoon/evening visit. I knew it was very likely that he might not be ok with her handling him so I got him used to staying in the cage some nights when I was home so he didn't assume he had to be let out just because I was home and he wanted out.

If you let your parrots out every day for the entire time you're home start leaving them in their cages more, sometimes for the entire day. You want to get them used not always being out in case whoever is looking after them is either uncomfortable letting them out or unable to handle them. You want to make sure that the new temporary routine won't be a complete shock to them. There's no faster way to lose a bird sitter than having a bird that screams non-stop because they think they have to be out of the cage just because somebody is in the house with them .

Especially if you're leaving your bird with a 'non-bird' person it's a good idea to leave them with a manual like Michael said. Some people might do something innocently and not know it's harmful to your birds. Especially if you're leaving them at somebody else's house. Make sure they don't cook with Teflon pans, let them know the dangers of open water (i.e. toilets), open windows, open doors, drafts, chemicals, etc.

[lzver]

I think that one of the good things about having a parrot (depends on the parrot of course) is that you can go away for a short period of time and just have someone come in to check on them and provide fresh food and water. I know people that do this with cats as well, but you wouldn't dream of doing it if you had a dog for example.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

We've been using a small pet-sitting business when we go on trips for years. The person who runs it is really great, extremely knowledgeable about cats, gives our kitties meds, even did SQ fluids for our elderly kitty. She is less experienced with birds although they have several others they "sit" for. We are going away for a week this weekend which will be the first trip longer than a couple days since we got Scooter. She'll come in twice a day to take care of all the critters, so he'll get his regular routine, even some out of cage time on the playstand. I'm worried anyway that he'll be lonely. After the last overnighter he was pretty clingy for 2 or 3 days.

[bmsweb]

Thanks for such helpful posts guys. The Budgie will be alright, Jazz the Cockatiel will want interaction time with Humans and the Conures are OK because they have each other but I feed them twice a day and i would like them to get their fresh food twice daily.

My other concern is the budgie and Cockatiel are both flighted now and I'm not sure how they will go in a new enviroment. Have you guys ever taken a flighted bird to someone elses home? Do they still know what a Mirror and window is?

With pet-sitting businesses, I'm guessing you use the cages the business has already and is there a possible problem with disease and illness from other birds?

I think the best option for us is going to be my wife's parents. Her dad does have birds and I know her mom will follow my instructions to the letter. I'm thinking of prepacking their food for them too (including Fruit & Veggies, which I could freeze).

[Michael]

The best option in my opinion is for the parrot(s) to stay in their own cages in their own home and have someone else come and take care of business. I think 10-60 minutes of interaction in their own environment is more beneficial and safer than hours of interaction but at someone else's home. There are so many bird proofings that we have done over time that we may take for granted we can easily forget them in other people's homes or they can't accommodate or don't know any better.

While it may be most convenient for the person watching the parrot to have the parrot in their home, I think for the parrot's sake it is better that it stay home and the humans make their way over. Basically if my parrot goes to another home she is granted the familiarity of my presence. If I am gone, then the parrot stays home and she maintains the familiarity of her own home. But the option of taking the parrot to someone else to watch means that absolutely everything will be unfamiliar and is more likely to cause stress.

With more simple-minded birds (if that's how I can put it) it may cause less distress while in some of the more socially needy parrots it could be practically a death warrant. In your case you may get away with it, but I wouldn't recommend it with someone with a particularly needy/moody parrot. If you must let the bird stay at someone else's house, the least you can do is bring it there a few times and familiarize it to the place while you are there so that when you are gone it is less scary.