Barbi
Sprinting down the street
I was inspired to start a new thread after reading another and seeing that so many do not have an emergency back-up plan for their birds.
I traveled 1200 miles to get Krickett and made a 4 week road trip out of it selling my wares at bird marts. She was surprised at 8 weeks old to find we had a home that wasn't rolling down the highway at 75mph. So, I have always taken her with me when I travel. I specifically chose a Yellow Collar Macaw because she was likely to travel well and do well with strangers. Since then we have gotten an RV and she has a cage set up in there and one always ready in the back seat of the truck. Occasionally Jeff and I will go away just for an over-nighter and leave Krickett half covered half uncovered at home and she does not seem to notice we are even gone. We also leave the TV on because that is what she is used to. One time we had to leave in an emergency situation, had 3 grandkids in our custody and they were in the backseat and we couldn't take her along AND I didn't know how long we were going to be gone. I had never considered finding a sitter for her and just did not have time to wrap my mind around it at that frantic time. I ran her to a neighbor's in her travel cage and asked them to keep her for us until we returned...they had always been friendly to her and interested when they visited so I thought it would do in a pinch...NOT!!! More than a week later we returned to a bald bellied bird, her cage sitting on the floor in a dark corner of the house with an icky water bowl and the bags of foods and seeds I had left still nearly full. That was in late Dec of '08 and we are still working on the feather plucking. I expect that we will always be able to take her with us when we are gone for more than 24 hours, but have since found someone reliable that I can leave her with if another emergency comes up, the owner of our local feed and gardening store. He will keep her in the store and cover her before they all leave for the evening. This will suit Krickett just fine as she has always been a bird mart bird and enjoys strangers interacting with her.
For all of you that do not have an emergency plan, please please please consider making one so your birds don't have the same unfortunate experience that Krickett had.
I traveled 1200 miles to get Krickett and made a 4 week road trip out of it selling my wares at bird marts. She was surprised at 8 weeks old to find we had a home that wasn't rolling down the highway at 75mph. So, I have always taken her with me when I travel. I specifically chose a Yellow Collar Macaw because she was likely to travel well and do well with strangers. Since then we have gotten an RV and she has a cage set up in there and one always ready in the back seat of the truck. Occasionally Jeff and I will go away just for an over-nighter and leave Krickett half covered half uncovered at home and she does not seem to notice we are even gone. We also leave the TV on because that is what she is used to. One time we had to leave in an emergency situation, had 3 grandkids in our custody and they were in the backseat and we couldn't take her along AND I didn't know how long we were going to be gone. I had never considered finding a sitter for her and just did not have time to wrap my mind around it at that frantic time. I ran her to a neighbor's in her travel cage and asked them to keep her for us until we returned...they had always been friendly to her and interested when they visited so I thought it would do in a pinch...NOT!!! More than a week later we returned to a bald bellied bird, her cage sitting on the floor in a dark corner of the house with an icky water bowl and the bags of foods and seeds I had left still nearly full. That was in late Dec of '08 and we are still working on the feather plucking. I expect that we will always be able to take her with us when we are gone for more than 24 hours, but have since found someone reliable that I can leave her with if another emergency comes up, the owner of our local feed and gardening store. He will keep her in the store and cover her before they all leave for the evening. This will suit Krickett just fine as she has always been a bird mart bird and enjoys strangers interacting with her.
For all of you that do not have an emergency plan, please please please consider making one so your birds don't have the same unfortunate experience that Krickett had.
. This did happen to someone I know and thankfully all her birds found a safe place to go including her special needs bird. It's not pleasant to think about but it's a something that should be planned for. I'm going to talk with my neighbors that are friends of ours and let them know who to contact.
