missing pets: no place like home
A new episode every other week, featuring content from and about the animals, their owners, finders, volunteers, and professionals.
missing pets: no place like home
Pet Birds, with Callie Lusnia
Ever wish you could decode the enigmatic world of avian care and recovery? Our latest episode is your golden opportunity to do just that! With the guidance of our esteemed guest, bird expert Callie Lusnea, we're embarking on a fascinating journey into the heart of bird care, charting the tricky terrain of looking after our winged friends and how it contrasts with the care of common pets, such as cats and dogs. Callie lifts the veil on the intricate lives of these captivating creatures.
As we sail deeper into this intriguing world, we'll delve into the art of avian rehabilitation and adoption. The impacts of rainforest destruction on these species, the nitty-gritty of buying a bird from a pet store, and the debate on whether cockatoos are actually parrots—there's a trove of knowledge awaiting you. Plus, we'll be discussing the commendable work spearheaded by a parrot rescue in Pittsburgh and the importance of supporting rescues.
To cap off this insightful episode, we gear up to tackle lost-bird recovery. Thinking about the bird's flight ability, we present some pragmatic suggestions to help you in the unfortunate event of losing your parrot. Our conversation emphasizes the unique needs of wild and domesticated animals, their survival instincts, and the crucial aspect of considering their physical and emotional well-being during their homecoming. So, get ready to be enlightened, educated and enchanted in this unique adventure with Callie Lusnia, your perfect guide into the awe-inspiring world of avian care and recovery. Don't miss out!
"No Place Like Home" is a podcast about missing pets. I feature content from owners, finders, volunteers, and professionals.
I always appreciate a rating and review on your podcast app and a follow on Facebook, where you can find the show at nplhmitch. Find episodes, transcripts, and additional information at noplacelikehome.show.
If you have questions or feedback, you can contact me at nplhmitch@gmail.com.
Remember to always think missing, not stray or dumped.
This podcast was created, hosted, recorded, and produced by me, Mitch Bernard. The opinions expressed on this show are those of the people expressing them and do not necessarily represent the views of any other entity.
One, two, three, four. I Am.
Speaker 2:Welcome to missing pets, no place like home. I'm your host, mitch Bernard. I feature content about lost and found pets from their owners, actual and potential finders, and professionals and volunteers who take care of all of the above.
Speaker 2:For this episode, I spoke with Callie Lusnea, an expert on wild birds. We talked about how she came to care for these gorgeous creatures, some of the ways they differ from cats and dogs as pets and what that means for recovering them when they are displaced. Up next, my interview with Callie. Oh my gosh, you brought a bird. I'm so excited. Oh my god, he's so gorgeous.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I love birds so much and I don't know anybody with one. I have so many questions, so oh.
Speaker 3:Everybody is. Everybody hates bird. They're creepy, they're tongues are dry. It's weird what I'm so happy to talk to someone that loves the bird.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I really do. I think they're just gorgeous and when I was in college, this boy I thought I was going to Spend the rest of my life with, as one does when one is in college. Yeah, he had an African gray and Just the sweetest bird and he brought him from home to live with him in his apartment the one year and it was just so fun and he would like do the thing where he would have him on his back, he would like put his thumbs in the birds, feet, toes and like push it around on the floor and he would just go crazy, was so happy.
Speaker 3:That's so funny.
Speaker 2:And then I followed the story of the Alex the African gray. I guess that was like very, very smart and they did a lot of studies with him. And Then when I lived in Pittsburgh, I'm fine, yeah, I didn't know about the brother but Pittsburgh yeah, when I lived in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2:There's the National Aviary is there and and it's, there's this one hyacinth macaw that is just like the most breathtaking creature you've ever seen. It's like, it's huge and just this brilliant, like Lapis blue and With these bright yellow. I don't know what this is called over here and yeah, yeah, I'm so glad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so excited to have you here and I I want to talk about you for a bit and then I want to talk about how you got into Doing work with birds and what you do After that we'll get into like special challenges and locating birds and recovering them once they get out, because it seems to happen More often than I would have expected. I don't know what I would have expected, but I'm always surprised and a little worried when I see, you know, some like parakeet or something, some little bird that's Showed up on someone's balcony or whatever.
Speaker 3:So yeah, yeah, they have such a shorter length of recovery time available too. That's always frightening, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so tell me about what you do now with birds and how you got into that work okay, well, I guess it was about Five or six years ago, maybe seven now.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness. I had finished school was well, my last year of college and needed some part-time work, and I've always, always been into animals. I I grew up on a farm and I didn't go to public school, so you know, animals were my only companions. I never went to like a real school or anything. Yeah, so there was this store in Oklahoma City called Birds, etc.
Speaker 3:And it's one of the only stores I've ever come across that, whatever you believe about breeding, it did actually it Did some breeding and it acquired a lot of chicks of many species Interesting and hand raised them to the retail.
Speaker 3:That too, yeah, now that I know better, I do better. But, yeah, sure, yeah, so so I started managing this store for them and it was, it was the best job I've I've ever had. I, I loved it. Only time in my life I've ever, you know, not been able to wait to get up and go to work, and I got to work with just about every species you you commonly think of cockatoos, graze, littler ones, kaiics, conures, all of them a cause, yeah, it's, um, it's a bush parrot. So, like, instead of step up, instead of the big long tail like you see in parrots that are up in the trees, I Each have another bush parrot. Have little square, fat, short tails so that they can wiggle around in the brush and stuff, but they're a little, they're like this big, they're kind of like puppies, little playful that was rolling around.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, and you should introduce your, introduce your companion there. This is.
Speaker 3:Monty. He's a hybrid macaw. He's a cross between a greenling and a scarlet, and I did even get to meet one, hyacinth. I was so glad to hear you tell that story.
Speaker 2:Oh nice.
Speaker 3:She was amazing. I'll never forget her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just an incredible looking bird. And how old is Monty?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it's really tough to tell parrots ages. Okay, even vets can't definitively say. Often they'll have a leg band with the year that they hatched, but not his. His fornimer owner said he was about 12 when I when he surrendered him to the store, so that would make him Gosh. I guess 18 almost now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they live. That's not anything for him, right? I mean, they live like human life is.
Speaker 3:No, right, yeah, no, that's not anything for him, you're right. Yeah. He'll live to barring injury or health issue 100.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. That is why I don't have a bird, because I just can't. Yeah, I mean, I someday maybe like rescue a very old one, but probably after my husband is gone, if I survive him, because my husband is one of the people who was. You know, they can be noisy, so I will give him that you know, I sort of bird set.
Speaker 2:A bird. I can't even remember what kind of bird it was now, but like the size of an African gray I don't remember what it was but kind of a you know size. People had an apartment and they just kept it, kept, kept the birds cage covered all day, and so I mean I was like 22 or 23. I didn't really know, but my job was to come over and change the papers in the cage and add some food and check the water or something like. It was a very minimal kind of routine which makes me feel really sad now. But but they said they had to keep him covered because it was too noisy for the apartment.
Speaker 3:That is bad, but I guess at least it had a safe place to sleep and yeah, I mean yeah, that's a whole conversation, so I'm sorry I interrupted you.
Speaker 2:You were managing this store which, it sounds like, also served as a rescue, sometimes took in with surrenders.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did get a lot of surrenders, kind of kind of like, when people get a puppy that's going to be a large high energy raid, people will get a macauchic. They're the most commonly surrendered animal birds as macaus. Yeah, they're very gentle, when they're chicks, very sweet, and then they hit puberty, around seven years old and they're not so easy to handle anymore. Might break a finger or a wrist if you come at them wrong, so then people want them more.
Speaker 2:That's even worse than like with puppies and kittens. They do go through. Kittens go through adolescence, starting at like four or five months and it lasts until they're almost a year old usually. But that's you know. If somebody, hopefully you warn the person before they, you know like it's going to start being kind of clumsy and crazy, and you know a few weeks and you kind of warn them what to do and you assure them that it's going to pass and if they're going to give them up, they give them up, you know, within just a few months. So the animal hasn't developed that kind of a bond with somebody. But after seven years with the same owner, that's yeah, because they're. My understanding is that birds are really social and you know they really bond to each other or people or whatever. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're there. I kind of always explain it like it's not that dogs and cats aren't emotionally intelligent. They are obviously, but but parents have just an amazing degree of sophistication and you get a lot of that more complicated social dynamics with parents and your ride. They do tend to bond more deeply to one person, where dogs and cats, you know, might, might kind of chill with everybody in the family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most breeds at least. So. So you were at this store managing keep interrupting you. I really want to hear the story, oh it's that.
Speaker 3:That's about it. On the story of how I got into birds they, I kind of ended up being the, the unofficial rehabilitator of the angry McCaw's that would come in surrenders to buy and I would kind of rehab them for rehoming so that hopefully they could find a new family, and that's how I ended up with him.
Speaker 2:So what is that process like for a bird? Like social rehabbing them and getting them adoptable.
Speaker 3:Well, you kind of most of them start out mad. Yeah, and you kind of just have to convince them that they're not going to be the boss of you without ever obviously breaking their, their trust in you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So once a bird doesn't trust you, it's, it's almost irrecoverable. Yeah, so you got to prove to them that you're not afraid of them and then slowly battle it, give you the opportunity to work on those behaviors that make them difficult to interesting to be re-homed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I guess they're. I mean, they're wild animals. So you know, the the ability to do real harm to a person is always going to be there for any animal, but the it seems to me that the likelihood is greater for a non-cowarder, for a non-domesticated species than for something like a cow or a dog.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as opposed. Yeah, they're most. Most birds that you see. Companion parrots that you see are only a few generations removed from the, the original wild environment, so definitely not a domesticated species, by any means.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can we talk a little bit about them? Sorry, we're getting way, you know, astray from like the whole lost and found.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Well, no, no, that's on me. I'm so curious, I have so many questions, so I love the little noises that he's making. By the way, that's so sweet, so he's so pretty. I don't know that I'll probably post the whole video of this, but I'll have to find you know, make some clips, because he's just gorgeous. So most people these days in the United States they'll purchase a bird from a pet store. I'm guessing, is it like an adolescent bird or an adult bird? How does that? Well, it usually comes Normally it's a.
Speaker 3:Yeah, normally it's a chick, a just weaned chick is what most breeding facilities try to sell and it's kind of going the way of purebred dog breeders where it's not so much pet stores anymore but hobby home breeders. But you'll still run across a storefront here and there, unfortunately. I suppose. Yeah, and they'll sell the chick after it's weaned, normally for a big one around 15 to 20 weeks old.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And it will. You know at that age it's very malleable, very friendly, really capable of hurting a person with a bite, but really not aware of that yet really mentally capable of it.
Speaker 2:Right. And then in the dog world, for instance, there are these breeders. There are, like, a lot of people make a distinction between, like, a reputable breeder, a responsible breeder, a backyard breeder, so I'm guessing that they're sort of similar, like that. There are people out there who just have a couple of birds and let them mate and just see how many birds they can breed and sell.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely those horrible situations where you know some guy has a couple of Amazons and a big dog panel in his backyard and every couple years they'll have a few chicks and he'll shove them off on somebody. But there are a lot of good ones too, and that's good. I definitely can. All the work that's being done on endangered species, like the Spix macaw breeding programs that work on that, I'm all for it. I think that one just released into the wild its first group of like 20 or 20, I think juvenile a year or two ago.
Speaker 3:So yeah, there's good stuff too, but lots of bad.
Speaker 2:So they're normal habitat. I'm sure I guess that's probably going to vary a lot, but a lot of these I guess must come from rainforest kind of habitats. So our use of all the resources in like South America and that are killing the rainforest, those are having an impact on these species. Viability Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yes, so a lot of loss of rainforest is kind of or my understanding it's not like. I've been there kind of pushing more treetop jungle ever type species like him into more arid regions, like the more arid grubby regions of South America, and so that's declining their numbers as well. There are parrots that naturally live in those arid regions, but, like I say, they're those short tailed, stud-tailed ones not these treetop ones.
Speaker 2:But is it correct to refer to the whole group of these kinds of looking birds as parrots to people, or like as a macaw? I mean, a macaw is a kind of parrot but like? Is a cockatoo also referred to as a kind of parrot, or is that a separate species entirely?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. All parrots are yes and all parrots. I think their technical name is citizens. It's like PSI TTA CI. You know one of those. Latin categorization and everything except a cockatoo. They're really little one with philitol are all parrots and there's even some debate on the cockatoo. I say it. Some people say it's technically not a parrot, it's just sort of a relative of cockatoos and its own thing. But everything with a hook bill like this as opposed to like a toucan, which is a soft bill is called a parrot.
Speaker 2:Cool. Oh, I've learned so much already. So people are buying these chicks in stores or and I know that in Pittsburgh there was a there was a parrot rescue, pearl. Yeah, I can't remember what it stood for, but yeah, there was a parrot rescue. I haven't found anything like that up here. I just moved to Vermont in March and I haven't found like I was at.
Speaker 2:We were at a really nice like sort of what I would think of as kind of a conscientious pet supply store with. You know it's an independently owned and lots of high quality foods and knowledgeable people, and a woman came in while we were shopping and she asked one of the people working there where she could buy a parrot. She wanted to buy a parrot and the person told her you know, we don't. We don't sell live animals, I think at all. But. But he said we don't sell birds but you might be able to find one at and refer to her to some other store I don't remember. And after she left I thought I wonder. I mean like I would think that someone in that position would know if there were a parrot rescue. Are there just not very many of them and we were just unusual in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3:There's not very many in my experience. I know of one main one here in Oklahoma, just outside of Tulsa. It's called soft landings and nice, I mean she. She stays covered up in birds. Like I want to say. She has hundreds at this point and she's still doing it out of her home Wow.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's so much work.
Speaker 3:It really is, and they they definitely seem to get re re-homed or surrendered to a rescue about the same frequency, if not more so, than than dogs and cats, unfortunately. So, although there's a lot fewer domesticated. Yeah, sure, it's not as common of a pet, but people who do have them not not great off yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll have to look up some statistics about, like the frequency of ownership, and I wonder what I'll be able to find about, you know, the surrenders and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's talk about missing and recovered parrots and other wild birds that are kept as pets. I'm just going to use parrots for now, but, yeah, so often what I see lately is photo of you know a cute little green parakeet or something, and someone will say, well, this bird landed on our window or flew in our window or whatever. We have this bird that we found, does anyone recognize it? But a lot of times the owner of these birds is like with dogs and cats. We will. Our usual approach when we're trying to recover someone's missing dog or cat is we will, you know, put up flyers and posters and we'll put out cameras to watch for them, and once we sort of get a bead on where they are, then we can set a trap and we can bring them in, because there's really it's not very common for a displaced dog or cat to come to someone when called, you know it's there's certain techniques that you have to use to lure them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if I'm the owner of a bird like Monty, say what? What are your first recommendations for dealing with bringing him back home? I mean, is it. Yeah. What are your first tips for someone in that situation?
Speaker 3:Well, the first thing you always have to think about is is this bird flighted or not? Okay, and there's a lot of space in between there. You know, monty could fly up into a tree if he got really frightened. Okay, he's never. I don't believe he was allowed to fledge as a chick and really learn. So you know, it's not as though he could fly several miles away. So, hopefully, you know if you're the person looking for the bird rather than the person who found it, you'll know, have some idea of its flight capability.
Speaker 3:And that will tell you a lot about where am I going to look first, what am I going to? What kind of places am I going to look in? But the very first thing that you want to do, pretty much regardless of its flight capacity, if you don't have an eye on it, if you can't find it, is to walk the area that it was lost dawn and dusk, playing calls like same species calls, or on your phone or, even better, okay, if you have another bird, put that bird in a travel cage.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And take it outside. It's a pretty common reaction, even in birds that don't go outside a lot, to the flock call when they're outside, and that's how they locate each other in the wild, especially at dawn and dusk at roosting times. So you put them in the cage, you walk the area, okay, and even if the lost bird is not responding to its human say, I would put my other paw in the cage and walk the area and hopefully, hopefully, Monty would respond to his flock mate's calls.
Speaker 2:Okay, and are you at that point also carrying a travel cage for him? Or do you have, like falconers, have those gloves with the hooks and things? How are you going to secure him once you find him?
Speaker 3:Well, again, that's kind of individual. But with Monty I would not have another cage because he's not going to want to get in a cage just willingly. But he will step up on me and he can't fly a lot. I can just kind of a great handle on a bird is just the sort of you on the back of the neck, because that doesn't hurt them or restrict them in any way, except it keeps the wings from extending so they can't get any lift.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So, but normally a bird is going to be so happy to see its person. It doesn't like they're so scared outdoors. Most birds have no idea what's going on outdoors and they want to come to their person and go home. Yeah, which is great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, true, I mean, I guess if they're purchased from a store or something and they've been bred, they don't have. I mean, there's so many factors there, but I was thinking of, as you were talking, like it's not just whether the flight feathers have been clipped or left intact, but also whether the bird gets an opportunity to exercise those muscles and practice flying inside or out. I've seen some videos of people who take their birds, their parrots, out to a field and just let them fly wild and come back and like that's terrifying to me because I'm like, oh my gosh, what if they don't come back? But you know, these birds seem to do that.
Speaker 3:That makes me very nervous, though, the free flying. Just a quick side note, like even if you can trust them to come back, there's so many predators, hawks God forbid and there's no way to train them for it I mean what? Are you going to get a hawk and have it? Practice evading hawks, like it's? Just not practical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but but yeah, yeah, I think with dogs and cats a lot of times people will have the and I'm sure with other especially reptile pets again, you know wild animals but they think that if the animal is left out in the wild that some kind of magical instinct will kick in and teach it to avoid predators and avoid traffic. And I have a lot of conversations with people about letting their cats outside and it's very common up here to let, to have cats, just have free rain outside, because I'm in kind of a rural-ish area and you know I stopped arguing with people a long time ago because I know it's a very individual thing per owner, per cat, per community, whatever. But my general feeling is that domesticated animals are like toddlers. It's not like you're curtailing their freedom by keeping them inside, like they're an adult.
Speaker 2:They're not, they can't see around corners, they yeah, they just don't naturally stay away from cars and mean people and predatory animals and things like that danger. So yeah, I hadn't really thought about that with the birds, but but then there are some that not that this changes my opinion about letting them loose but there are wild caught birds that are trafficked, I guess still, even though that's illegal.
Speaker 3:There certainly are True.
Speaker 2:Okay, so yeah, that's a whole lot of them, yeah, but the factors.
Speaker 3:You're making a great point that the factors of finding a lost bird are so, so different than a mammal like a dog or a cat. But I would say, secondarily whether or not they're flighted is the fact that their metabolisms run so much faster, hotter, they're going to starve to death or die of dehydration. So I mean exponentially more quickly than any mammal and it's not like, oh, but they might find water or food. It could be right there. Right they don't know what they're seeing. I mean, how would they?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, and I think you mentioned when we first started talking about our short recovery time. Is that what you were referring to?
Speaker 3:is that they have to eat and drink much more often than yes, yes, A really small one like that, Periky say, that has so little body mass to begin with it can starve to death in 24 hours no, Obviously a big guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously a big guy would have a little more time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But it's very unlikely that even if there is water in their area or something they could eat, that they would recognize it as that and do that.
Speaker 2:Right. Can they smell Like, do they have a sense of smell? Can they smell water or pray or something? I mean not that they would recognize pray, but oh, that's great.
Speaker 3:I agree too, and it's actually still kind of hotly debated oh no. I mean it's quite some development.
Speaker 3:All people really are split. The last time I kind of read actual research on it, the research seemed to be sort of pointing to we can't find anything in their little nasal structures to indicate that they can smell. Yeah. It doesn't really seem like there's. It's in there, Sure, but I mean there's so much anecdotal owner evidence of, oh yes, they can. So I kind of lean more on the side of they must have some abilities of smell, even if it's not sharp.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right Interesting. What do you feed him? What does he live on?
Speaker 3:So there's this company that zoos use a lot. That makes all kinds of exotic animal foods, and there's, there's a few, but in my opinion the most reputable is Zuprem Z-U-P-R-E-E-M, and they make a, a parrot, Parrot pellets, like a little fruity pebble looking things, and that's really just supposed to be about 60% of their diet. And then you supplement that with unsalted nuts like pistachios, walnuts, as a little fats and a little bit of treats but a lot of fresh stuff as much fresh stuff, as you can give them green stuff, bell peppers, spicy stuff, almost every vegetable, but no avocados and no chocolate, because those are very toxic.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting avocado would not have thought of that. I guess that would be hard for a gardener to eat anyway, and it's something about the kind of fats that it has.
Speaker 3:They can't digest them or something and pits we gotta stay away from pits and fruit seeds, because those are a little bit toxic.
Speaker 2:Stone fruits and things like that, yeah Cool. And does he get any kind of like mealworms or wormworms or any that kind of stuff, or just fruits and vegetables or pellets? They?
Speaker 3:like a little bit of cooked protein. I know some people give their birds chicken bones to chew on, but I prefer to just give them a that seems risky to me. I don't even know why. It's not like it's gonna choke on it like a dog, but I still worry if it'll fracture or something. So yeah, yeah. I mean so I'll give them like a chicken nugget every now and then, or, if they want, a little bite of whatever meat I have on them.
Speaker 3:I'll give them that. They like a little of that now and then yeah. How many birds do? You have I have two macaws and a few various outdoor bird poultry like guineas chickens and a few fintains.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh neat. And how many of those are yours and how many are fosters?
Speaker 3:They're just mine, right now, yeah, soft landings is not that far from me. Oh, that's nice, and I they pretty much take. I'm in a really lucky situation. They pretty much take in every lost parrot that is found.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, that's so great. That's so great. Okay, so locating. So if I'm an owner and I can get out and look it needs to be soon I need to try. Maybe try to make some noise to let them know where I am, to come to me either with a live bird or some sounds on it. I'm sure there's plenty of apps out there.
Speaker 3:Honestly, if it were me, I would just YouTube that feces, if I didn't have another bird and play. Those flock calls, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, that's smart. I hear sometimes people talking about putting their cage outside with like their blanket or something like the bird might fly into the cage to. I mean, it sounds like Monty wouldn't do that, but are there birds that where that's kind of given as the technique to bring them home? Oh, be sure to put its cage out right away.
Speaker 3:Is that a thing? I've definitely heard of that and I would really recommend that in the cases where you see the bird but it's too high to reach, so people kind of tend to use that to encourage them to come down, and it can work.
Speaker 3:It can work if they're like up there, terrified, not gonna brave, climbing down or trying to fly down. They're not an experienced flyer. I'm torn on the blanket technique. Some people say put the cage on a blanket or on a big sheet to make it visually out better. But I'm like I say I'm torn on that, because a lot of birds are very reactive. I think it's part of being a wild animal not domesticated two colors, especially big, uninterrupted fields of color, that you have to remember that they're not a predator animal like a dog or a cat. They're a prey animal and so they're not gonna wanna go places that they have no cover no yeah, something about also like red orange.
Speaker 3:There's that evolutionary theory that it's having to do with instinct to flee fire, that they really dislike those colors black, terrified black things, big black things, yeah yeah, you know, there's some snakes that are big black things that they might not wanna encounter and burn trees yeah, I mean, that makes plenty of sense.
Speaker 2:That's very interesting, though I'll have to. You know we have plenty of resources in this network. I'm in that talk about ways to recover displaced birds. I just haven't ever worked a case with a bird, so I'm kind of new to that. And if I do find a bird and for whatever reason, I'm not able to keep it in my house although I think I could put it in a bathroom or something until I could find an owner, but say I couldn't and there's not a soft landings near me what do you recommend that people do? What does animal control?
Speaker 3:do. Do you know how to? I've definitely heard of local animal controls, recovering them and even kind of like how you'll occasionally find a bunny or a pig or something up for adoption at the local shelter I've come across some birds yeah, so they normally do have lots of kinds of enclosures and things that can work for a bird, and if you find one thing and you don't have a bathroom or whatever, you can put it in.
Speaker 3:if it's a large enough bird, you can get one of those giant collapsible wire dog crates and they'll be totally fine in that for a little while. Okay, yeah, yeah, but really the basics of recovery are you want as many people covering the area that it was lost in as immediately as possible and for as long as possible, and, like I understand that that's not feasible for dogs and cats because that could honestly go on for weeks.
Speaker 2:Well, also, it will drive them further into hiding if they're at all skittish Like that's. We do not recognize search parties, but for birds it's ideal because they're gonna.
Speaker 3:they're gonna hole up somewhere and they're probably, if they're not experienced, flyers, they probably don't wanna go far. But if they're too frightened to be calling, it's gonna take a lot of eyes to find wherever they're huddled down. There's so many places to look, even in a small area. So you want as many people kind of a grid pattern, I would say as long as possible, as fast as possible, and you don't have to have that worry about. Well, we can't keep people out here doing this for weeks because it's one way or another successful or unsuccessful.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah. Yeah, you're not gonna be doing it for weeks. Yeah, people tend to I know that this happens a lot with reptiles is that when the reptile gets too big, we're unmanageable, eating too much. Whatever, people will just let them go outside Python's boas. You hear about this with especially down south.
Speaker 3:Yes, a lot of parakeets In particular. I don't know why parakeets, but they're. It's like infamous. I don't want my parakeet anymore, but at three it will die very soon. There's just, there's no other way around it.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, and the least taxing of the whole of that whole group to keep right. I mean, then they, they've spent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we live like 20, 30 years, yeah, yeah, yeah, parakeets, the little ones, like a standard lifespan is 10 to 15, and some of them die around that nine to 12,. A lot of them die around that nine to 12. So I think that yeah, and I try to say I try to tell myself that's really just a product of a lack of education. They really think it's a bird and it's okay, and that makes me feel a little better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think that's true. I think that way about anybody who makes that decision is that they just don't know better, because I don't think that in general, people are cruel and want their animal to live a terrifying death, but I think they just assume that, or they assume that someone will pick it up.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm sorry. One other thing that I want to make sure people hear about recovery. If it does have all of its flight feathers, if there's a good chance it could fly, of course you have to think about is it a windy day? Could it have gotten caught up in a really high gust and carried that direction further than it wanted to go? Because it can be surprising how far they do travel, even against their will, if they get startled and then caught on a draft and don't know how to get down. Never practice landing all that. Oh wow, yeah, I never would have thought about that.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. Yeah, definitely that's a very good tip. Well, thank you so much for talking with me and sharing Monty so beautiful. I can't wait to put together the show notes for this and link to all this new information. This is really not stuff that most of us know anything about, so your knowledge is much appreciated. Sharing that If someone wants to get involved in maybe adopting a bird for themselves, what do you recommend that they do?
Speaker 3:The rescue near me is the only one I know for sure. But normally you can Google parrot rescue near me and it will come up with at least one or two per state and they always. I've never run across one that didn't have plenty of birds for adoption, much cheaper than buying a juvenile, yeah, so just like adopting a dog. Fraction of them and they're grateful they understand so definitely go to a rescue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome, and if they wanted to learn more about how to recover missing ones. Are there organizations you know of besides those like mine, that generally?
Speaker 3:do pet recovery in general. I don't know anybody that specializes in it. 911parrotcom is great for you report. You can report a missing bird there and also, yeah, and also I believe, the last time I was there. They had a lot of good tips of if you just lost your bird, here's what you can start with. Yeah, but I'm happy, if anybody loses a bird. If there's anything I can do to answer questions or troubleshoot, don't hesitate. I want to get him back home.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I thought of two more questions I meant to ask earlier. One is do people spay or neuter birds Like?
Speaker 3:is there a way of desexing them so they can't reproduce? No, it's because of the hormonal impact on their bodies. They go through a mating season. That's very different than like, say, a female dog in heat. So it would have a really negative impact to sterilize them.
Speaker 3:But, they can be. They're normally sexed when they're a chick. You send off a feather or a little drop of blood and I tell you if it's male or female, and you just. It's pretty uncommon to have two parrots caged together anyway. So it's just a prevention game and it's surprising that maybe creating conditions are hard to create.
Speaker 2:Gotcha Okay. And then how about microchipping? Do people microchip birds? The?
Speaker 3:big ones you can. Some of the really tiny ones, even the little grain of size chip is too much. But yes, the big ones you can. I wish I had a resource for where to get those. I do not.
Speaker 2:I would imagine that a vet that treats birds would be able to do that, or shelter. Yeah, I mean, I don't know anything about veterinary care for a bird, but I can't imagine that injection.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I bet any vet that has small animal chips like for rags and things like that. I bet they could use the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It just goes right under the skin. They typically place it kind of on the back, like between the wings, if I understand correctly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's so cute with his little. I'll have to share some video of him doing that, because every time you kind of reach your hand over in that area, he puts his little foot up like, oh, hearing him, he loves his mama. Oh, that's so cute. Oh, Marnie, the little Indian ring neck. Have you seen Marnie? I love to watch him on YouTube.
Speaker 3:I've heard of him. I haven't.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'll have to look that up there.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, that's funny for him.
Speaker 2:He does great. There's yeah, there's Marnie who does. He does a good peekaboo and like he's oh my god, he's the cutest. And then there's another blue one, another Indian ring neck, I think his name is Bacon Pancake, but he just will, like the videos are. If you just video, if you just Google, you know Bacon Pancake Parrot, you'll see him. He just like they'll put him on the shower curtain rod and he'll just go Bacon Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon. Oh.
Speaker 3:I'll have to look that up.
Speaker 2:Anyway, thank you again. So much, kelly, it was great to meet you. And bye, marnie.
Speaker 3:Me too Bye. Bye.
Speaker 2:I'm so grateful for my guest, Kelly Lestinia, for joining me today. Thank you for listening.
