Opinion on possible adoption

[Cstone01]

We have an alexandrine and a major Mitchell, my husband is a doctor and takes the MM in to work so most people at the hospital know we are bird people. A youngish patient came into his unit last week (she was in her 30s) and was very concerned about her bird, her attending told her another doctor on the unit had birds. Long story short the patient died and asked if we could take her 15 yr old white fronted a amazon.

The other doctor kind of went over our heads while talking to her and assumed we would want to take the bird and it is a hard position to back out of. The patients mother wrote out family a note about how good it would be if we could take him after taking such good care of her daughter.

I am not opposed to expanding our flock but was not intending to do it right now. We are also moving out of state and buying a new home in 5 weeks. The bird is supposedly not aggressive and will go to anyone, I just don’t know how stressful it would be to add a new bird right before a move. he will also need to be quarantined while I am running around packing our house up. I am assuming he will come with his cage ect but do not know for sure. He is being boarded at a vet now and I am going to go visit him next week. I have very little experience with Amazon’s and have never owned one so there is a lot of learning to do.

I think we are going to end up with this bird- does anyone have advice on avoiding situations like this especially at the hospital? I know we can always say no but it becomes a little more nuanced with sick people scrambling to set up a plan for their birds (we have ours in a will with a modest expense account). We have been asked to take other birds before and have said no, it surprises me how often people request this after learning we have birds. I do not want to get in over our heads and if we said yes to everyone in 10 years we would have 30 badly socialized birds. Thanks for any advice

Edit:he is a 15ish male, no idea yet on diet, number of homes ect

 

[Laurasea]

I'm not a spring chicken, but what my momma always says to me " there is always room for one more " when burds in need find their way to me. As you know in life there are no guarantees. In this manner 3 budgies came to me, one who's life i saved and I have no doubt was ment to find me. As the odds of saving a cat bite to the face are very tiny. A quaker in need of a home, abd one sad girl I had to rescue. ..I wasn't looking for them, but I'm so glad they found their way into my life

Anyway, I feel you can, are the best people.
Thank you so much for doing this, I hope. It makes my heart feel soft to think of you providing a home, for this parrot who has lost their person. Sometimes they will grieve, in parrots the average is six months. So if things start out less than perfect, remember they are full of greif and lost . And one dsy they will bloom. So be patient. Sometimes they just slide right in to your heart sbd life from day one too.

It helps not to borrow trouble abd dwell on all the possible problems. Instead bask in the knowledge you have the resources, and experience to make this work.

Given time if it truly feels you are not the right home. Then you are the angel home for transition to the right home. I had gotten a new little puppy, when days later things happened and I had to rehome. The people I found had been searching fir a long time, snd this little puppy became the rock star of their lives. A few months later I found the puppy thst was ment to mine for ever.

Please keep us updated.

 

[Laurasea]

This is a great article, lots of helpful tips
https://lafeber.com/pet-birds/stress-reduction-for-parrot-companions/

 

[Cstone01]

I'm not a spring chicken, but what my momma always says to me " there is always room for one more " when burds in need find their way to me. As you know in life there are no guarantees. In this manner 3 budgies came to me, one who's life i saved and I have no doubt was ment to find me. As the odds of saving a cat bite to the face are very tiny. A quaker in need of a home, abd one sad girl I had to rescue. ..I wasn't looking for them, but I'm so glad they found their way into my life

Anyway, I feel you can, are the best people.
Thank you so much for doing this, I hope. It makes my heart feel soft to think of you providing a home, for this parrot who has lost their person. Sometimes they will grieve, in parrots the average is six months. So if things start out less than perfect, remember they are full of greif and lost . And one dsy they will bloom. So be patient. Sometimes they just slide right in to your heart sbd life from day one too.

It helps not to borrow trouble abd dwell on all the possible problems. Instead bask in the knowledge you have the resources, and experience to make this work.

Given time if it truly feels you are not the right home. Then you are the angel home for transition to the right home. I had gotten a new little puppy, when days later things happened and I had to rehome. The people I found had been searching fir a long time, snd this little puppy became the rock star of their lives. A few months later I found the puppy thst was ment to mine for ever.

Please keep us updated.

Thanks for the website. Your confidence is reassuring. I was thinking and also realized I can probably pay the vet to board him for the rest of his quarantine period. I think he has already been there for about 2 weeks.

 

[Cstone01]

I haven't read it all, but be sure to quarantine. There are many doctors who know less about birds than they should, and this should not be offensive-- it's a fact. Most vets don't get birds.

I’m not sure I understand this completely. Maybe it is the use of the word doctor, my husband is a neurologist (human doctor), But I’m not saying he knows more about the bird because of this. We are just getting the bird because one of his human patient owned the bird and has died. The bird is at a vet(the patients mother took him there). I know that not all veterinarians are knowledgeable with birds but I still think they would be more qualified than me to recognize if the bird was sick during a quarantine period.

I’m really not trying to be argumentative at all or nitpick your comment, I’m just not sure if we are understanding one another. The reason I would prefer the vet to quarantine the bird over quarantine him at my house is the fact that I’m going to be very busy packing the house up and will not get nearly as much time to pay attention to him and this may add stress. A strictly proper quarantine is also done in a separate building/air supply from other birds but most people do not have this luxury.

I can see where it would be interpreted that my husband is a vet and the bird was in his charge especially with him taking the MM into the office.

 

[LaManuka]

Cstone, in my very humble opinion, I think you would provide a wonderful new home for this Amazon. And as Laura mentioned, should it turn out that you are not his "forever" home, you may just be the means by which he finds it. I have some experience in this myself with a quaker who is now living large with another member on this forum - as difficult as it was at the time I was only ever a temporary stop along the road to where he was meant to be. You are taking an extremely well reasoned and level headed approach to this, with the major complicating factor of course being the interstate move.

"We are just getting the bird....." almost kinda sounds like you've already made up your mind I wish you all the very best of luck should you decide to go ahead with the adoption. Deepest respect to you whichever way this goes.

 

[SailBoat]

Starting life with an Adult Amazon!

READ with understanding, the two Threads at the top of the Amazon sub-forum, and especially: Understanding Amazon Body Language as that Thread provides the Basic Hardwire Amazon Body Language. With an understanding of their basic body language working with Amazons become easier.

We take in very specific Amazons and everyone that knows us, know that we are a single Amazon Home, i.e. the very old, very ill and likely abused Amazons. So, we rarely have individuals offer us Amazons unless our one had past recently.

As with near all Parrots, they need, want, love to be in the center of the activity in the home. You have received wonderful advise above and in addition to the information in the 'two' Threads at the top of the Amazon sub forum, you should do well.

 

[noodles123]

I haven't read it all, but be sure to quarantine. There are many doctors who know less about birds than they should, and this should not be offensive-- it's a fact. Most vets don't get birds.

I’m not sure I understand this completely. Maybe it is the use of the word doctor, my husband is a neurologist (human doctor), But I’m not saying he knows more about the bird because of this. We are just getting the bird because one of his human patient owned the bird and has died. The bird is at a vet(the patients mother took him there). I know that not all veterinarians are knowledgeable with birds but I still think they would be more qualified than me to recognize if the bird was sick during a quarantine period.

I’m really not trying to be argumentative at all or nitpick your comment, I’m just not sure if we are understanding one another. The reason I would prefer the vet to quarantine the bird over quarantine him at my house is the fact that I’m going to be very busy packing the house up and will not get nearly as much time to pay attention to him and this may add stress. A strictly proper quarantine is also done in a separate building/air supply from other birds but most people do not have this luxury.

I can see where it would be interpreted that my husband is a vet and the bird was in his charge especially with him taking the MM into the office.

I'm so sorry- that is what I get for skimming and multi-tasking. My apologies. I feel really bad! I just assumed you were talking about a veterinary doctor and birds when I read the first few sentences ( irresponsible of me). OBVIOUSLY, it's clear that this was not about birds and that was my fault because your post was clear. Again, I am so sorry for yammering on about something totally unrelated.