Going on a Vacation

[zazanomore]

So, in 12 days, I'll be off to Cancun. My family, and my step-aunt's family are going to be staying there as a family vacation for 7 days. (Normally, I'd hate this kind of vacation, but I really want to see the pyramids). Anyways, the whole family will be gone.

We are having our accountant come to the house every day to feed and give fresh water to the birds. She's worked for the company for a few years now, and I'm always in the office helping her with filing. She was the one who directed me to Einstein's breeder. She had pairs of lovebirds for a number of years, so she understands bird care.

I'm not too worried about the budgies, as they have each other the keep company. I think they will get along just fine without me, as they will get their cages cleaned, fresh food and water daily.

But my poor baby Einstein. He is used to having our morning and night time snuggles. He sings to me every morning. And I take him out for at least 2 hours a day minimum.

I was thinking about maybe leaving the tv on, but that could keep him up all night and stress him out. I'm not sure if I should ask her to take Einstein out. He isn't very fond of new people, and he is fully flighted. Her birds were fully flighted, but they were her tamed lovebirds. I'd be scared if she let him out, he would keep flying away and she wouldn't be able to catch him.

Do you think having her come and just talk to him for a bit would be good enough?

What have you done before?

[Kathleen]

If your bird is target trained, it might be less bad than you think.

Offer to have this person come to the house before you go on vacation if possible to practice some training with your bird. If the bird is only let out/handled at a time when you would be training it, I'm sure it would be easy to lure it around with a target stick or lure it back into the cage with a meal and a little patience.

[sidech]

If you want to leave the tv or radio on for him, just use a timer (a manual one is fine, you don't have to pay for a digital one). You can get one at Canadian Tire or Wal-Mart for under 10$.

I'm going back to work tomorrow and that's what I did for Jazz. I found a nice radio station with a mix of talk / soft songs and set the timer to play from 12 to 4 in the afternoon. I figure in the morning he'll go back to sleep, so didn't want to bother him then.

You can set your timer to go on for an hour, off for the next one, and so forth, or any combination you'd like.

Have a good vacation !

[entrancedbymyGCC]

We have a professional pet sitter that comes in twice a day when we are gone. We have lights on timers anyway so they have routine illumination. Sometimes she puts on a bird sitter video for them. If your person is only coming in once, you could put radio or TV on a timer (Christmas light type of time would do the trick I think) but I'd watch it with him several times before just leaving him with it. (Sidech was posting the same thing at the same time, great minds think alike! LOL)

He'll almost certainly be fine. Scooter has endured a number of trips and Scotty a couple now. I have to admit that the last two times Scooter has been furious with me when I got back, but he's gotten over it with no harm done. We're going to try to tweak some things on our next trip to see if that helps.

If his cage is good-sized, and he has plenty of toys, and the budgies to listen to, he may not even mind not getting out for a week.

Bottom line: most bird owners have lives, and most birds survive it! Very few of us can -- or should -- be homebound.

[michellet]

I totally understand your concern! I will be going away in Feb and i'm already stressing out about leaving Missy. The kids and I will be travelling 6 hours by car to attend a family event, and staying for 2 nights, so we'll be away for 3 days/2nights in total. I have close friends/neighbours that will be happy to come in to feed Missy, the budgies, the cat and the dogs...but this will be the first time we've gone away since i got Missy in November. I'm thinking about purchasing a smaller, more portable cage and taking her with us, but wonder if the car travel will be more stressful than being left at home. She's been out & about in the car, but only for short trips, so i'm sure how she'd manage 6 hours in the car. Oh, and my family, none of which are bird owners, would think I'm NUTS for taking her with us!

[zazanomore]

When I leave, I'm thinking about moving Einsteins cage right next to the budgies. Right now they are across the room from each other, but I think having them next to each other will give him a better view of the budgies. I'm so glad that he won't be home alone all day. He might not have a cage-mate, but at least he'll still have that flock mentality while I'm gone.

It's kind of pathetic that I haven't really gone more then a few days away from Einstein since I bought him in July.

I hope I don't spend my whole trip worrying about the birds. I can be really paranoid at times.

[zazanomore]

A bit of an update, the company that I'm getting my new cages from said that I should be getting the cages next week. So I might get the new cages before we leave.

I've heard that changing cages can be a stressful experience. However, these new cages would offer Einstein and the budgies a lot more room to move around. Would it be a bad idea to have the birds go in their new cages before I leave? Would this stress the birds out way too much? And should I just leave them in their smaller normal cages?

[idlepirate]

I hope I don't spend my whole trip worrying about the birds. I can be really paranoid at times.

hehehe Im paranoid just when I go to the shops for an hour if my bird's ok

[liz]

A bit of an update, the company that I'm getting my new cages from said that I should be getting the cages next week. So I might get the new cages before we leave.

I've heard that changing cages can be a stressful experience. However, these new cages would offer Einstein and the budgies a lot more room to move around. Would it be a bad idea to have the birds go in their new cages before I leave? Would this stress the birds out way too much? And should I just leave them in their smaller normal cages?

Give them the big cages but use the same setup with perches and toys. You can add a few new things just before you leave to keep them busy.

My Tiels and Love Birds are in different cages. When I moved the Lovies to a different room everyone complained. I had to put them back. I also found that they want to be side by side. They seem to be bonded as friends. I think they might do well in the flock but don't have the nerve to chance it.