rachelqiao
Meeting neighbors
- Joined
- 3/18/13
- Messages
- 20
- Real Name
- Rachel
Hi there. I live in the Buffalo, NY area and have a Sun Conure named Piper. My family and I go on vacation frequently I'd say, but it is usually only for a few days to a week, and we always get a family friend in the neighborhood to visit the house every day in order to change Piper's water and give him more food. However, since they don't really know how to handle birds themselves, and they're just a friend, not a paid worker, they don't play with him (he always bites strangers anyway), and they don't clean his cage.
However, my parents have been trying to go to China every summer (we used to go every other year) to visit their families because their own parents are getting old and they want to spend as much time as possible with them. Because of how expensive the trips are, the stress of planning them, and the 14+ hour plane ride, my parents would like to stay in China for 2 or more weeks. This year, they are planning to go for a full three weeks. I will not be home at the time either because I have to attend a summer college program and will be three hours away from home for 6 weeks, probably without a car and no other means to come home on the weekends.
I'm very uneasy about leaving Piper at home for more than 2 weeks, because last year we were gone for 2.5 weeks and when we got home Piper was acting extremely strange. He refused to come out of his cage, and when he did he would get spooked by something unknown and start flying around the house like a maniac, hurting himself in the process. We decided that it was unsafe to let him out and kept him in the cage, and he eventually started to become scared of us too. It took us a few weeks to earn his trust back and or him to start acting normally again, but even to this day, more than half a year later, he doesn't come out every day like he used to, and when he does (once a week if we're lucky), he can get scared pretty easily. We've already brought him to a vet about it but they didn't offer us any solutions.
After that incident, we installed a camera so we could check up on him if we were to ever leave again. Since then, we've gone on two vacations with no more incidents as severe as the China one, but probably only because the recent vacations were only around a week long. When we check up on him though, he's always just standing in the corner of his cage doing nothing.
I'm mostly worried about him not getting any outside stimulation for three weeks straight other than a few minutes each day and being extremely lonely. Also, I am terrified of having what happened last year happen to him again, since he still hasn't fully recovered. What should we do? We are looking into dropping him off at a bird hotel but I'm not sure if I fully trust them with my baby. I've been considering staying home for the first half of the college program, but both my parents and I agree that it would be a shame to miss such an opportunity.
What do you guys do when you go away for long periods of time?
However, my parents have been trying to go to China every summer (we used to go every other year) to visit their families because their own parents are getting old and they want to spend as much time as possible with them. Because of how expensive the trips are, the stress of planning them, and the 14+ hour plane ride, my parents would like to stay in China for 2 or more weeks. This year, they are planning to go for a full three weeks. I will not be home at the time either because I have to attend a summer college program and will be three hours away from home for 6 weeks, probably without a car and no other means to come home on the weekends.
I'm very uneasy about leaving Piper at home for more than 2 weeks, because last year we were gone for 2.5 weeks and when we got home Piper was acting extremely strange. He refused to come out of his cage, and when he did he would get spooked by something unknown and start flying around the house like a maniac, hurting himself in the process. We decided that it was unsafe to let him out and kept him in the cage, and he eventually started to become scared of us too. It took us a few weeks to earn his trust back and or him to start acting normally again, but even to this day, more than half a year later, he doesn't come out every day like he used to, and when he does (once a week if we're lucky), he can get scared pretty easily. We've already brought him to a vet about it but they didn't offer us any solutions.
After that incident, we installed a camera so we could check up on him if we were to ever leave again. Since then, we've gone on two vacations with no more incidents as severe as the China one, but probably only because the recent vacations were only around a week long. When we check up on him though, he's always just standing in the corner of his cage doing nothing.
I'm mostly worried about him not getting any outside stimulation for three weeks straight other than a few minutes each day and being extremely lonely. Also, I am terrified of having what happened last year happen to him again, since he still hasn't fully recovered. What should we do? We are looking into dropping him off at a bird hotel but I'm not sure if I fully trust them with my baby. I've been considering staying home for the first half of the college program, but both my parents and I agree that it would be a shame to miss such an opportunity.
What do you guys do when you go away for long periods of time?
