Preparing for Emergencies

Hi Everyone,

Question to the Bird community here....How well is everyone prepared for emergencies and how well have you included the parrot in your emergency protocols?

Reason I asked, is last year we had a close call with a tornado, rush to basement type of scenario. Must say I was not at all prepared for parrots in a situation like this. They never seen the basement so it was rather a spooky and nervously scared time of them that day. Not perch, no food, no water down there is such a quick response to potential danger. it passed us by, but not without some very strong winds, but we were spared.

Must say now I am well prepared...I have to all but wonder what would have happened if we gotten a direct hit, allowed time to get birds, or being trapped in basement for a day to a week. Scary thought huh??

Yeah - I'm not prepared. Mentally I am but physically I think I'd lose a pet or two in a tornado. In power outages I'd be okay. I'd not have to leave in the event of a flood...I'm on a really high hill. I guess I need to start that as part of the training. I do take them to other parts of the house as part of the training but I haven't the basement because for 18 years the basement has been somebody else's...either my in-laws or the "man cave" for my hubby.

Absolutely! We lived in a forest fire area for a long time. During fire season, we always had Kiwi's travel cage, a ziplock bag of his food and gallon jug of his regular drinking water ready to go (all stored in his cage area). We had a luggage tag attached to the travel cage with his name, vet info and our info in case he had to go to an animal shelter/became separated from us since many evacuation shelters didn't accept animals. We had small acrylic "cricket keepers" for our newt and gecko also tagged with our info because I wouldn't leave my scaly babies behind either (though, being cold blooded, they don't need to eat daily and eat live prey, so I didn't keep emergency food for them). In Oregon, I don't think theres any natural disaster risks, but in case of a house fire, the scalies have their emergency containers near their cages and I always keep a blanket near Kiwi's cage so in case he's panicked and won't step up, I can just grab him and run.

Kiwibird said:

Absolutely! We lived in a forest fire area for a long time. During fire season, we always had Kiwi's travel cage, a ziplock bag of his food and gallon jug of his regular drinking water ready to go (all stored in his cage area). We had a luggage tag attached to the travel cage with his name, vet info and our info in case he had to go to an animal shelter/became separated from us since many evacuation shelters didn't accept animals. We had small acrylic "cricket keepers" for our newt and gecko also tagged with our info because I wouldn't leave my scaly babies behind either (though, being cold blooded, they don't need to eat daily and eat live prey, so I didn't keep emergency food for them). In Oregon, I don't think theres any natural disaster risks, but in case of a house fire, the scalies have their emergency containers near their cages and I always keep a blanket near Kiwi's cage so in case he's panicked and won't step up, I can just grab him and run.

Click to expand...

Yeah....from the time we spotted the funnel cloud till we hit basement and horrific winds hit...was like 2 minutes...You have to FLY...no time to wait for bird to step up...you grab and run. The freight train sounding wind is enough alone to frighten the birds.

Hawk this is a great thread. I watch the news a d when Sandy hit New Yorkers were digging g through dumpster in 3 days. Three days is all it took. I don't find it gross or distasteful that they were trying to survive. It's the 3 days that gets me. Me and mine can last at least a month. I'm working on 3 months worth. I'm not all doomsday peppers style but I do think it's wise to have a min of 30 days that you could go without shopping if you had to. When I got laid off last year it sure helped.

gracebowen said:

Hawk this is a great thread. I watch the news a d when Sandy hit New Yorkers were digging g through dumpster in 3 days. Three days is all it took. I don't find it gross or distasteful that they were trying to survive. It's the 3 days that gets me. Me and mine can last at least a month. I'm working on 3 months worth. I'm not all doomsday peppers style but I do think it's wise to have a min of 30 days that you could go without shopping if you had to. When I got laid off last year it sure helped.

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When your unprepared sometimes it can take less than 3 days....After that tornado close call, it was an eye opener to prepare.

What's even more scary is the real threat of an EMP, electrical magnetic pulse, That can come from the sun, (severe solar flare) high altitude detonation (nuclear device), which can render cars, home electronics, generators everything electric, useless....

QUOTE=Hawk;469220]

gracebowen said:

What's even more scary is the real threat of an EMP, electrical magnetic pulse, That can come from the sun, (severe solar flare) high altitude detonation (nuclear device), which can render cars, home electronics, generators everything electric, useless....

Click to expand...

ALL of my prep food is shelf stable and most is non cook but I have some stuff for a campfire if needed. I also have some indoor heat sources. I didn't mention it earlier. Green beaNs may not taste good cold but...

I used to live in a fire-prone location and decided to purchase a used van for evac purposes. Stocked it with food, water, carriers, rudimentary medical supplies, etc. During one bad fire year I had about 12 hrs notice to expect a mandatory evac. Loaded up 13 parrots, 2 dogs, a cat and migrated to a friends home for 5 days. Turned out very well as we were able to place all the animals in the garage. A few years later I relocated to a safer locale, but kept the van as cheap insurance - could never forgive myself if some emergency required an exit. Last year it began to severely rust, so it was exchanged for a newer and larger Ford Econoline van. One row of mid-section seats remains + partial barrier to separate the winged and hooved creatures!

While few areas in San Diego are immune from rampant fires during the windy season, I am now a shade over 15 miles from a deactivated nuke plant. Even though the reactors are inactive, nuclear waste will remain on-site possibly for decades. Three miles from the coast should be safe from Tsunamis.......! Then there's the specter of an earthquake!

Kiwibird said:

Absolutely! We lived in a forest fire area for a long time. During fire season, we always had Kiwi's travel cage, a ziplock bag of his food and gallon jug of his regular drinking water ready to go (all stored in his cage area). We had a luggage tag attached to the travel cage with his name, vet info and our info in case he had to go to an animal shelter/became separated from us since many evacuation shelters didn't accept animals. We had small acrylic "cricket keepers" for our newt and gecko also tagged with our info because I wouldn't leave my scaly babies behind either (though, being cold blooded, they don't need to eat daily and eat live prey, so I didn't keep emergency food for them). In Oregon, I don't think theres any natural disaster risks, but in case of a house fire, the scalies have their emergency containers near their cages and I always keep a blanket near Kiwi's cage so in case he's panicked and won't step up, I can just grab him and run.

Click to expand...

Great Idea......Time is crucial I found out.

gracebowen said:

QUOTE=Hawk;469220]

gracebowen said:

What's even more scary is the real threat of an EMP, electrical magnetic pulse, That can come from the sun, (severe solar flare) high altitude detonation (nuclear device), which can render cars, home electronics, generators everything electric, useless....

Click to expand...

ALL of my prep food is shelf stable and most is non cook but I have some stuff for a campfire if needed. I also have some indoor heat sources. I didn't mention it earlier. Green beaNs may not taste good cold but...

Click to expand...

Green beans are a great source of energy and protein, for birds and humans.

I'm not a dooms day prepper, but that close call last year was a serious eye opener. My wife and I had a good talk about preparing for dogs and our parrots, our livestock as well (chickens), if time allows, them too.

I have seen and heard people trapped in their homes or basements from tornados for 3 to 8 days....and I realized how close we came and I wasn't at all prepared. Not even for a few hours of survival. I am now.

It was mentioned before online about having an evac plan for the birds, because often people just have to let them loose and hope for the best. I have lots of cat carriers, but I dismantled them all but one to go to the vets in, so they can't be "grabbed". I was going to buy some plastic "picnic baskets" with lids to use as evac for the birds, but I haven't got around to it. I found the tiniest cage the other day at the $2 shop and got that for the budgies. Seriously, it is absurdly tiny, it could never be used to house a bird but it'll hopefully be just the ticket for hauling everybody out.

Luckily, I'm not in a bushfire,cyclone, hurricane, flooding area so I haven't felt too compelled to have everything in place for a quick getaway. I've got camping stuff and a big water container, so if there was anything going to happen, with warning, I'd have that stuff to use.

They've got some cute little small animal carriers up at the pet shop, but they are ridiculously expensive. My bunnies would just have to go in one of the cat carriers. I take them to the vet in there and it'd be a bit better if they had to stay in there for any length of time, the little carriers are really only suitable for getting from A to B, but you could carry more than one.

You know - I spent last evening and this morning thinking about a plan.
I'm going to have to put one down on paper and then purchase the items I don't have so that I can be prepared. Right now I use cat carriers to take the birds anywhere I need to go but I realized the other night that if I use them for the birds I don't have anything for my cats.

I also realized that many times I get quite low on my cat's wet food. They don't get much of the wet food at any one meal but they would put up quite a fuss if they couldn't have any for a few days.

Bird food - nope I don't have any set aside for an emergency evacuation. I don't have dog or cat food set aside either. But in the event of a snow storm I always make sure I have enough water and food on hand.

In the event of a fire I would let my cats and my dog out...I know they would come back but I'm afraid that my birds would perish.

Another thing that I'm trying to do is put instructions for each animal in a notebook so that in the event I have to go to the hospital or be away from the house any one of my kids or friends can come in and take care of the animals that I have. I do this for my pet sitter but I need to make the instructions just a little more detailed for anyone else coming in. Kind of like you would do for a standard office procedure notebook.

That's a good idea about formalising the instructions. I've done it when I've had to go away, but it's been ad hoc. I really should sit down and do it properly. One of my cats takes tablets and has to have special food. He'd happily eat any food he is given, but it could make his urinary problem flare up, so it's important that somebody not do that. Otherwise, dogs and cats are relatively straightforward to look after. Birds, if you haven't had them, not so much, and bunnies you need to know things or you could kill them with hardly any trouble at all.

I've got all my vaccination records in one place, but nobody else would know where they are.

I suppose it's a good idea in case we were to drop dead, as well. Unfortunately, I can't even manage the basics at the moment, so getting organised for emergencies isn't on the agenda.

(now I'm worrying about everyone. LOL)

Great thread. I was recently thinking about what if we had to evacuate and how I would handle the birds. We live close to the coast so hurricanes, flooding, possible tornados are potentials. My only run in with a tornado was during hurricane Ike, a tornado bounced through the neighborhood hitting my neighbor's house, less than 100 ft from my bedroom. I never heard it but it was so windy from the winds ripping through and noisy.

Where we live now, we will evacuate if a hurricane heads our way. I have a travel cage for each bird but I think now making a bird emergency bag is in order. Now for tornados, we have no basement and the center room in the house is the livingroom. That's no Bueno. Well thanks for the thinker Hawk. Excellent thread.