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Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

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Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby Bird woman » Sun Dec 31, 2017 1:10 pm

Warning, please before you surrender your parrot to a rescue with the beautiful web sites and all the loving and new home stories and the promises to find great home or the perfect on site sanctuaries DO YOUR HOME WORK. I've been at this working with various rescues as I rescue birds mostly with Major medical or behavioral problems. I have spent countless hours and money attending to the worst of the worst cases and have uncovered some pretty disturbing things I would like to share and hear your stories of the good and the bad as I'm at this time compiling much needed information to post a web page as a guide for our beloved birds not to get caught up in the rehoming money making traps or the hoarding situations of collectors running under 501c3 status to collect these birds for free. I have worked with several rescues to date that collect surrender fees to relinquish a bird under the pretense of getting basic medical before they can be indroduced into population all the while not even the basics have been provided. I've also come across another very devastating situation where the birds are horded and kept in a windowless wherhouse without proper heat ,lighting or ventilation . Kept in cages and the only enrichment they get is wadded up newspaper and cardboard box's. It is a sad situation when an elderly person or family finds themselves in a situation that they can no longer keep there baby or the owner passes away and they rely on an organization that has that wonderful web site and professes to have the perfect solution to your birds situation and the answer to your prayers. I am sickened by what I'm seeing and vowing to do something about it. I've also incountered a very disturbing trend of rescues having a person pick a bird from a picture that has had the wrong information or very misleading info so the bird would get returned with no money refunded and thus they can turn the bird again for more money. I have 2 birds in my care at this time that have been flipped several times due to the practice of placing deliberately in the wrong homes. I've also uncovered phony reviews generated by I'm assuming the owner of the rescue or friends specifically commenting on what a wonderful place this particular rescue is and the birds they care for now in there forever home which are in my possession . I've also been further used in there blogs as working with them on medical needs and being a huge part of what they do. I am not affiliated with anyone and as of this point after what I've seen or plan on it. Please be very careful who you trust to find your babies a good home , always do your home work and visit the sanctuary. If they don't let you visit and can't produce documentation on how many homes they've found in the last year and tutorials , verifiable on there success rate then run the other way! If they profess to be a sanctuary then pay attention how the birds are housed. I understand that rescues don't generally have the funds to make everything as perfect as possible and it is suppose to be a stepping stone from abuse or neglect to a loving family but please be aware of what I'm finding out there and it's horrible and I can't turn a blind eye to it. I will be gathering more info on good and bad rescues and when I find the good ones with there permission starting a web page full of the good information. So please share your stories bird woman
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Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby Navre » Sun Dec 31, 2017 2:28 pm

I think we have placed 80 birds this year. I'm pretty sure there has been just one return. In that 80 birds placed this year is a bird who was placed in '16 and returned later in '16. Returns happen, but not often. We do have a few birds who were returned after many years as the adopter got too old to care for the birds.

A surrender fee covers the basic testing to ensure that the bird is free from communicable diseases. I think the surrender fee is $100. It covers an exam, bloodwork, and Graham's stains.

You should always be able to see the facility. Most people surrender their birds at our rescue, so they are free to look around.
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Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby Bird woman » Sun Dec 31, 2017 4:27 pm

I have followed your post often and would say from a distance it's one of the well run rescues. You seem to have a great staff of caring volunteers such as yourself that are very devoted. Thank you for the info . When I'm ready to put my good guy web site up I will defiantly need info to contact them for permission. I'm so fed up with a lot of the things that I've seen and experienced this past few years I don't want to be one of those people that turn a blind eye and ignore it. Thanks P :thumbsup:
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Gender: This parrot forum member is female
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Flight: Yes

Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby Pajarita » Mon Jan 01, 2018 11:42 am

Yes, you are absolutely right, Patti! I've been saying the same thing for a long time... just because it calls itself a rescue or a sanctuary and has a 501[c]3 tax status, it doesn't mean it's a good place! Lots and lots of places are just a cover up for collectors [I know a couple in NYC that has a rescue/sanctuary that are nothing but collectors], hoarders [too many of them to even list], or places that start off good and with the best of intentions but become so overwhelmed that end up being a bad place [and this, unfortunately, is the most common problem] and then there are the ones that are there for the money and just flip birds left and right [and there are way too many of these!].

But this doesn't mean that there aren't any good places. As you say, people need to do their homework. Visit the place, look around and check to see if the birds have good housing, that they are not crowded, that they have a place to fly and good food in their bowls [particularly look for fresh produce], make sure they don't have too many birds [even when they say they have volunteers taking care of them, it's too iffy and volunteers don't normally last long enough to make a difference or take their duties as a job that needs to be done every day], that there is natural light and good artificial one. And ask to see the vet records making sure the name of the bird and the dates correspond because I just found out that they are giving copies of vet records of different birds [different name and wrong dates].

There was a project where two ladies went around USA visiting rescues and sanctuaries with evaluation forms so as to put together a database of all the rescues that had voluntarily cooperated with it but I can't remember who did it or what the name was...
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Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby Bird woman » Mon Jan 01, 2018 1:27 pm

That's another thing I forgot to mention and thank you for reminding me about the dummied up bio's and vet records. What I've found just sickens me and I can't turn away . :(
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Gender: This parrot forum member is female
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Location: Southern , Oregon
Number of Birds Owned: 10
Types of Birds Owned: 2 mollucans, 2 LSC'S, 2 macaws, 1 bare-eye, 1 grey, 1 goffin and max the quaker
Flight: Yes

Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby Navre » Tue Jan 02, 2018 9:55 am

Most of our vet records use the birds' names, if they have one. You'll find an intake vet record for every bird.

Ongoing care isn't alway recorded. If the vet comes in a does nails on a bunch of birds, we might not have a record of that.
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Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby Pajarita » Tue Jan 02, 2018 11:48 am

That's nothing, John. I am talking about vet records that show results of a healthy bird with a different name than the bird that is adopted out and, when the adopter takes the bird to the vet, finds out the bird is sick and has been sick for a long time. I recently had a woman contact me asking me what the results meant in the vet report she had gotten from the rescue where she had recently adopted a bird [this rescue is the same that adopted out a 'healthy' bird when the bird had advanced liver damage and high cholesterol]. It showed a HUGELY high value in CPK, something that would only make sense if the bird had been badly wounded, had just had surgery, a chronic heart condition or something like that but it also had another name than the one of the bird the lady had adopted on it so I told her to contact the rescue -which she did and got NO reply at all- and to take the bird to an avian vet and run the tests again. I did not say anything to the woman but it seems to me that she just got a vet record that belonged to another bird and that this bird was never taken to the vet at all...
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Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby seagoatdeb » Wed Jan 03, 2018 4:18 am

Talking about collectors and hoarders......i am still traumatized by what I saw at the rescue that is close to me, which is accepted by the SPCA and everyone around. Parrots in tiny cages that looked like prisons to me. No toys. Mackaws and Amazons screaming that looked insane. Cockatoos begging for any touch of any kind but no one is allowed to touch them when visiting there. Its hard to accept that everyone thinks this is a sancutary and it is good. I am happy to hear there are some good ones out there.
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Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby Pajarita » Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:17 am

The problem are the animal cruelty laws, Seagoatdeb. Until we have animal cruelty laws that actually address the needs of each species instead of just asking for shelter from the elements and access to food and water, inadequate places like the one you saw are perfectly legal and nobody can do anything for the poor animals in it.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: Before you surrender your parrot to a rescue

Postby seagoatdeb » Wed Jan 03, 2018 4:11 pm

Pajarita wrote:The problem are the animal cruelty laws, Seagoatdeb. Until we have animal cruelty laws that actually address the needs of each species instead of just asking for shelter from the elements and access to food and water, inadequate places like the one you saw are perfectly legal and nobody can do anything for the poor animals in it.


I know it saddens me.
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seagoatdeb
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