Vacationing with parrots

I recently took an extended leave of absence from my birds, to go work in an orphanage for a number of days in Nicaragua. Outside of the trip itself, my largest concern was for my parrots- how would they deal with being under the care of someone else during my absence? I wanted to share a few trip and tricks that helped me have a safe, and stress free trip.

1. Find a reliable pet sitter! It seems like common sense, but I cannot stress enough how important this is. I was fortunate that my family is able to care for my animals- but if your family is unable to do so, there are many great resources out there that you can use to employ a reliable sitter. When interviewing the sitter, make sure they have previous exotic bird experience- you may be surprised.

2. Make the transition gradual. Have whoever is watching your animals come over a few times prior to your departure. Encourage the person to engage in the activities that they would be while you are away- feeding the animals and etc. Observe a session so you can give constructive criticism (if necessary) on how they can properly deal with your pets.

3. Always have a backup. In case your first petsitter of choice has something come up and is unable to care for your pets, or simply has an emergency while you are gone, have contact information available and ready so that your pets are always covered and you don’t need to stress.

4. Let your vet know you will be leaving, and leave the petsitters information with them. If your pets need medical treatment for whatever reason during the duration of your vacation, veterinary clinics often need owner consent before they can legally treat the animal.

5. Relax, and enjoy! I’ve heard of many bird owners that haven’t taken a vacation in years because they worry about the impact on their animals. Its not healthy for you, and its not healthy for the birds. Everyone needs a break once in awhile, and I can assure you that your flock will welcome you back with open wings.

Harness training: Building up a Positive Account

Before restarting outside with the harness on Piper I want to build up a strong history of positive experiences. So in this phase I’m doing our usual indoor recalls with it on, giving bonus treats, and giving him dinner while wearing it.

If he happens to have a bad experience outside or gets spooked, I don’t want there to be such a strong association between outdoors and harness that he doesn’t want to put it back on.

A very different training experience than with Carly. She was calmer outside from day one, so there was very little risk of anything associated with the outdoors becoming an aversive.

This is not from day one, but day two, after coming home at age 4 months. In the background is the rest of the gang, Fergus the cat at right, Moby my homing pigeon walking on the path at the left, and Ripley the dog in the center (over Carly’s head).

* No, she is not on any kind of restraint here. She was always so calm and stuck to me it never even occurred to me that she should be on a harness (at the time I didn’t even know such a thing existed). She was also given an extremely severe clip at the store, so she literally couldn’t fly, period. In a very stiff wind it might have been possible, but we don’t get much of that here so it was easy to avoid. As her wings started to grow out, and before I learned about training, I was very fortunate that she was never inclined to take off.

For more information about using a harness, see the Complete Harness Training Series of blog posts.

The economy… and parrots.

This is a post I put up on the forum about something extraordinary that happened to me a couple weeks ago.

“About a month ago I had someone come knock on my door. They had seen the extra bird cage(s) I have in my garage, and wanted to come introduce themselves. Turns out this person- a nice women- is my neighbor and has parrots, too. She was coming to ask if I would possibly want more. She lost her job, and isn’t able to make rent on her house so her and her family are having to drastically downsize and move into an apartment. Unfortunately this means she no longer has the room for her large parrots.

After a long discussion, I politely declined taking the animals, partially because I was unsure about taking in two random parrots and partially cuz I didn’t have the rehoming fee she was asking for. But I gave her my phone number and contact info in case she wanted help finding a home for her birds down the road or anything. I felt bad for her- she has had these birds since before her child was born, so about 8-10ish years, and now she is being forced to give them up.

Well that happened about a month ago, right? Didn’t really revisit the idea, had a lot of stuff happen in between that just totally put any prospect of new birds out of my mind. Well yesterday I am home early for a change and someone I don’t recognize is knocking on the door. Hello? Its the lady again, wondering if I had thought about the birds. I told her no, not really, I was hesitant because I had an extremely large bill from two other older birds that I had adopted that passed away the past couple years and just can’t handle it at the moment. She starts crying and asking if I would just please come look at them, she needs to leave in a week and hasn’t found a suitable home for her animals and just wants to make sure they go to a good home.

So I go over and look at them….

Its a timneh grey and a blue and gold. Both birds are animated, extremely outgoing, great attitudes and behaviors, and are in perfect feather. The timneh grey is a dollbaby and was blowing kisses the entire time and let me hold her. Well.. crap…..

The owners main concern is her birds going to a good home- she put ads in the paper and all that but the people that responded wouldn’t let her do a home visit and she wasn’t going to just sell her birds to the highest bidder. She had come over and seen my birds and interacted with them and saw how well cared for they are. So she turns to me and tells me - please take my birds, I know you will be an excellent home for them.. I know you are worried about fees, but having them go to a good home is more important then any money I would have gotten for them, so please just take them.

So guess who has two new birds? Yup.”

Just remember… people aren’t the only ones that suffer in this economy. I took the birds to the vet for a well bird check and they passed with flying colors, and the vet sighed as he heard how we got them, with a shake of his head. “Its happening more and more lately. People just can’t afford their animals any more.”

I want to take this opportunity to extend this offer- I have a bunch of Mazuri food I’ve stored that I can send to you if you need a bag of food or two to help offset a minor expense for the month. If you want some, please contact me via email. I will ask you to cover shipping charges, but that is all.

Forum Down

Sorry for the problems, folks. Unfortunately the Caique Forum has been down for the past week, and we have no clue when it will be up and running again. We had a bad hacker get into our server and mess with the system, so all the sites on the server went down, including our forum. Tech support is supposed to be looking at it this weekend and seeing what we can do to get this resolved as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please email emily@caiquecrazy.org and I’ll be happy to answer your questions. I’ll send out a mass email when the forum is back up - in the meantime you can catch us on facebook or myspace to get your caique fix!

No sites are authorized to copy this blog content.

Parrot “ezines” are not authorized to reprint
content of this blog.   I am not a member or “friend” of any external
sites, with the exception of ones on which this blog link is listed on
their blogroll. Sites who do this without linking to the original site are engaging
in a practice called “scraping” to get traffic to their own site.

Standard procedure is to publish a few lines of a blog’s most recent
post, with a link to the rest directly on the blog’s web site.   If
this is not done, it’s very likely that whoever is reprinting the
content is doing so without the author’s permission.

The real blog is located here:
Carly Lu’s Flight Blog
http://likambo.com/flyblog

Famous Caique

Dom Deluise, actor and comedian who lent his voice to such roles as Oliver & Company and All Dogs Go To Heaven died recently. In some newly released video footage it shows that he had a feathered sidekick- a white bellied caique named Charlie, to be exact. Check out the videos below.

Video 1

Video 2

HR669 Hearing Video

Recap of the HR669 Bill hearing meeting for anyone interested.

Click here

Watch HR669 Hearing LIVE

Watch the H.R.669 Hearing LIVE
April 23 at 10:00am Eastern Standard Time

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=273&Itemid

A list of your local representatives, there is still time to fax and phone!

Members of the
Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife
187 Ford House Office Building (Oceans and Wildlife)
(202) 226-0200 Fax: (202) 225-1542

Mrs. Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam, Chairwoman
Mr. Henry E. Brown, Jr., South Carolina, Ranking Republican Member
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Samoa
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
Gregorio “Kilili” Sablan, Mariana Islands
Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Islands
Diana DeGette, Colorado
Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Lois Capps, California
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Frank Kratovil, Jr., Maryland
Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
Nick J. Rahall, II, West Virginia (ex officio) Don Young, Alaska
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Doug Lamborn, Colorado
Robert J. Wittman, Virginia
John Fleming, Louisiana
Jason Chaffetz, Utah
Bill Cassidy, Louisiana
Doc Hastings, Washington, ex officio

HR 669, a new ‘animal rights’ bill

Wide cross posting of this email is requested in its entirety.

ACTION ALERT - FROM AFA, ASA, and NAIA, with additional information from PIJAC

WE NEED YOUR HELP - WHETHER YOU OWN AN “EXOTIC” ANIMAL OR ANY OTHER ANIMAL.

HR 669 IS SET FOR HEARING ON 4/23/09.

WE ALL NEED TO WORK TOGETHER TO KILL HR 669 NOW.

THE ISSUE - WHAT IS HR 669? - WHAT WILL IT DO?

“ONE GENERATION AND OUT” is not just limited to purebred dogs and cats. Now our “non-native” species” are targets of the animal prohibitionist agenda. Under HR 669, “non-native” basically means if a species of animal didn’t live in the US before the arrival of Columbus it is “non-native”, and if HR 669 passes, most non-native species of animal (i.e., exotic animals) won’t remain in the US much longer. That means your exotic pet bird, reptile, fish, or mammal.

HR 669 is a very serious and harmful animal prohibition proposal. HR 669 is not needed to protect our environment. HR 699 is the legislative equivalent of a nuclear bomb that is aimed at the entire US exotic pet industry, all US exotic pet owners, and all exotic animals in the US.

HR 669 is an “anti-animal bill”. There is no amendment that can fix this bill. HR 669 will hurt everyone who owns an animal, and it will hurt our animals. Breeder, pet owner, rescuer, rehabilitator, zoo, service or product provider - it doesn’t matter - we will all be hurt by this bill. HR 669 needs to be killed at the April 23rd hearing - not amended, not “made better” - HR 669 NEEDS TO BE KILLED. Please contact the Representatives hearing this bill NOW and ask them to KILL HR 669 (see below for contact information).

All import, export, transport across State lines, selling, buying, bartering, or offering to sell, buy or barter, and all breeding, and release, of all non-native species not on the “approved list” will be prohibited - even by zoos, sanctuaries, and licensed breeders. Permits authorizing only “importation” may be issued to “zoos, scientific research, medical, accredited zoological or aquarium display purposes, or for educational purposes that are specifically reviewed, approved, and verified by the Secretary”. There is no requirement that any permits be granted. Even if these institutions are able to obtain the required permits, where will they obtain their imported animals? Habitat for many species is declining worldwide, many species are endangered or threatened in the wild, and many species cannot be imported to the US under the CITES treaty. The result of this bill will be to put a stop domestic breeding of most endangered or threatened species in the US for zoos, conservation, or reintroduction programs. Zoos are not immune from the animal prohibitionist agenda.

If you “possess” a non-approved species “legally” prior to enactment of the law, you will be allowed to keep it, but all of the other restrictions pf HR 669 will still apply to your species - you will not be allowed to sell, transfer, transport across State lines, export, barter, trade, breed, or give that animal to anyone else.

Pet owners will not be allowed to take their non-approved pets with them if they move to another state, and they will not be allowed to transfer them to anyone else who can care for them. Those pets will be euthanized when their owners move, die, or can no longer keep their pets for whatever reason. Pet owners and their pets are not immune from the animal prohibitionist agenda.

“Rescue” and “sanctuary” will not be available for any non-approved species unless the rescue or sanctuary keeps only species found within their respective States. That result has been contemplated for years. Rescues and Sanctuaries are not immune from the animal prohibitionist agenda.

Any person or company manufacturing or selling food or products for non-native (exotic) species will be affected by this act. If non-native (exotic) species cannot be legally possessed, bought, sold, or transferred, there will be no incentive for manufacturers of food, caging, and supplies for these animals to remain in business. Where will non-native (exotic) animal owners obtain the food and materials needed to keep their animals?

Freeflight of exotic birds will be prohibited.

THE LEGAL DETAILS OF THIS BILL

Under existing federal law, it must be shown that a species is harmful before it is prohibited. That approach is reasonable, and has worked reasonably well for many years. In essence, HR 669 turns that reasonable approach on its head, and substitutes the unreasonable and unjustified approach of “bomb first, ask questions later”.

HR 669 requires the government to create an “approved” list of “non-native” species that will be allowed in the US. Any species not on the “approved” list will be prohibited. Under HR 668 the “approved” list shall include “nonnative wildlife species that the Secretary finds … based on scientific and commercial information …. (A) are not harmful to the United States’ economy, the environment, or other animal species’ or human health; or (B) may be harmful to the United States’ economy, the environment, or other animal species’ or human health, but already are so widespread in the United States that it is clear to the Secretary that any import prohibitions or restrictions would have no practical utility for the United States.”

It takes time and money for the government to study any species and make a “finding”. Time and money are always in short supply, and are especially in short supply in this economy. If your species is not included on the original “approved list”, then under HR 669 you can try to get your species “approved” by paying a fee and submitting a proposal to our government to include it on the “approved list”. Your proposal “must include sufficient scientific and commercial information to allow the Secretary to evaluate whether the proposed nonnative wildlife species is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to other animal species’ or human health.” While your proposal is being “evaluated” by our government, you and your animals are still subject to the restrictions of HR 669. Whether your proposal will ever be granted is pure speculation.

There are more than 9000 bird species, and thousands of species of birds are kept in the US. There are many other non-native (exotic) species owned by animal lovers across the US. How many bird or other non-native (exotic) species do you think our government can afford to study and determine that they can be added to this newly created “approved list”?

If the required study can’t be made of a species, and the required finding isn’t made about a species, the animal won’t make it to the approved list. That applies to every species of non-native (exotic) animal.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP KILL HR 669

Contact your Representatives NOW

1. You can use NAIA’s Capwiz tool to send an automatic email or fax to each of the Representatives who will hear this bill to ask them to KILL HR 669. Here’s the link to send your email using Capwiz:

2. PIJAC has provided us with a PDF flyer which explains to pet owners how HR 669 will hurt all of us and our animals. The PIJAC PDF flyer is attached to this email. The PIJAC PDF flyer provides you with contact information - use it. Please contact your own Representatives NOW, and tell them to KILL HR 669. Be polite and respectful, but be clear and firm in your opposition to this bill. Be brief, and tell them a few reasons why you think it is a bad bill. Short and to the point works best. If you have time, you can also contact all of the other Representatives in your State.

Write to your Representative using their contact pages on their websites. Unfortunately, it is sometimes hard for us to contact some of our Representatives - emails don’t often go through, letters aren’t read, and we sometimes have to write individually to our Representatives using the contact pages they put up on their websites. PIJAC has done the work to give us links where needed for these contact pages for these websites so that we can make those contacts (see the attached PIJAC PDF flyer), and NAIA is making “Capwiz” available for the one-shot contact - go to the Capwiz webpage at www.capwiz.com/naiatrust/

Call and Fax your Representative at the numbers provided on the attached PDF PIJAC flyer.

Be sure to contact the local office of your own Representative by phone, and if you can, make a personal visit. Our congressional representatives are now on recess, and will return to their work at the Capitol next week. Let your Representatives’ local offices know NOW that you want them to KILL HR 669. If the local staff hear from enough constituents that they want a bill killed, they will let their Representatives know that their constituents hate this bill.

3. Distribute this email, NAIA’s link, and PIJAC’s PDF flyer widely to everyone you know who loves animals and wants to keep them in our lives. In particular, send it to any pet lists you are on. This bill will impact almost all non-native animals. Ask them to contact the representatives and ask them to KILL HR 669.

4. If you have a website or belong to a discussion list, post this Alert and the PDF attachment. Ask your friends to do the same.

A NOTE ALL ANIMAL OWNERS, AND ESPECIALLY TO BIRD OWNERS

Does the Pennsylvania Proposed Ban of the Nanday Conure of 2008 ring a bell for anyone?

For those bird owners who fought so hard and so well for the Nanday in Pennsylvania in 2008 - that was just target practice.

HR 669 IS THE ANIMAL PROHIBITIONIST NUCLEAR OPTION - STOP IT NOW.

Get your phones, emails, and faxes working and get our troops marching again. We need every one of you to help again, and we need the help of everyone you know. It doesn’t matter if they own a bird, a dog, a cat, a turtle, a hamster, a fish, a snake, a tiger, a monkey, or any other animal. We are all affected by this bill. Don’t let the animal prohibitionists force their agenda on the rest of us.

Thanks,

Genny Wall

Attorney at Law

Legislative VP, AFA, NAIA

Laurella Desborough

Legislative Chair, ASA, NAIA

American Federation of Aviculture

Avicultural Society of America, For bird breeding, restoration and education. Founded 1927

NAIA | National Animal Interest Alliance

http://caiquecrazy.org

With great thanks to Marshall Meyers of PIJAC for providing their materials and for working on behalf of all of us.

PIJAC Home Page - Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council

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Caique Podcast

March 30, 2009 by Kelli  
Filed under Friends Of Parrot Ezine

Comments Off

Last year in July of 08 I was asked to do a podcast on the parrot species I know best- caiques. I did a ‘webinar’, or online training seminar through Ask The Bird Experts at www.askthebirdexperts.com and had a wonderful time, despite having to battle some technical difficulties. This past week I was asked to do another webinar with Ask The Bird Experts. I got to sit down with the wonderful host and discuss caiques at length, answer user questions, and also touch base on the importance of youth in aviculture and introducing the younger generation to our love of birds. It was great fun and I wanted to pass along the link where you can listen to the podcast. Go to askthebirdexperts.com and enter the requested information, then you will be directed to a page where you can download a version of the podcast for absolutely free. If you are reading this a bit late, I’ve put up both my 08 and my 09 talks on Caique Crazy- you can find them at http://caiquecrazy.org/emarticles.html

Hope you enjoy!

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