Things to keep in mind when rehoming
It is a hard decision to rehome a bird, and there are many things to take into consideration. It is hard to know who to trust. On the other side, people wanting to give a home to a bird can often be taken advantage of if the person offering birds turns out to be a scammer. The Mod Team tries our best to weed out all the scammers, but some are really good at what they do and with no evidence we can only hope people are telling the truth. If a bird truly needs a new home, we do not want to act on personal feelings and take that chance away from them.
With that being said, the Mod team wants to make something clear. We have many new members who come on either rehoming their bird or looking for a bird to add to their family. If a person doesn't have enough posts to PM, we forward PMs to the interested parties when asked.
This should not be considered a recommendation from the Mods for either party, it is simply a part of our job.
We strongly suggest that you do your own research, including reading a member's post history. You can do this by simply clicking on the member's username, which takes you to their profile. From there, click the "Find" button, and you can view previous posts. You should also ask many questions once you are in touch with the OP.
For people new to the forum & in this position for the first time, here are some steps we feel you should take and questions that should be asked.
People rehoming their bird
1. If a person is only willing to take a free bird, are they willing and able to afford to take care of the bird?
A nominal rehoming fee is quite common to make sure the person puts value on the bird and is willing to spend money for its actual care, veterinarian expenses etc on an ongoing basis.
2. How much experience do they actually have with parrots?
Everyone has to start somewhere, so a newbie to parrots should not be immediately discounted. However, if you want your parrot to have a greater chance of staying in a home long term, more in depth questions need to be asked to find out the reason for wanting your bird. Anyone without hands on experience but using YouTube videos to convince you that they know what they're doing should be questioned in detail.
3. Have they placed a little too much emphasis on whether the bird talks?
If this is an important thing to people, perhaps they want a bird for the wrong reasons.
4. Is the person willing to take any bird with no thought to what species it is?
If so, this could signal a flipper, or someone who may potentially not be a good fit for your bird.
People wanting a bird
1. Always Google search images sent privately to you of the bird. We do this with every image posted on the open forum, and when we find evidence of stolen pictures we remove the poster. Stolen images sent of birds needing to be rehomed are always a red flag, as are websites purporting to sell fertile parrot eggs.
2. If a person is offering a free bird and you only need to prepay shipping, be aware that this is a common scam. More times than not there is no bird. If they have no questions for you other than when you can prepay shipping, please question this.
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