Holiday worries: In or Out?

[ZephyrFly]

My boyfriend and I are going away at the end of October this year and his parents have offered to take care of Pazu for us. This is great for several reasons, they/his mum has helped bird sit for other although bigger birds before, Pazu has met them a couple times before although not recently, they literally live upstairs (we live in the basement flat of their house, completely separate to them) and they are happy and willing...

I am in the process of making a go to guide for them, a short one saying what not to do and possible a "Reasons why" one.

All this said they expressed an interest in having Pazu out while we were away which is what has me at odds. Not the kind of odds that makes me think they can't take Pazu for that time, they'll respect my answer, but I don't know if I want them to.

We will be away from Thursday one week til the Monday the week after. 4 and a bit days. This will include Wednesday evening/night as we'll be leaving the following morning. This seems like a long time to be pent up in a cage.
What would you guys do? Is that a long time to not be out of his cage?
I've also had it suggested by a non-birdy that maybe i should ask them to bird-sit for a weekend to see how things go as there are other issues as well (they're the kind of house that leave their front door open a lot to air out the house, this I'll have to put my foot down on due to local cats).

Cage specs: 25" wide, 18" deep, and 35" tall inside the cage.

Help? Advice?

 

[GaleriaGila]

I have lived my life in paranoia, where the bird is concerned, and I stand by that! If I'm the lest bit worried, I wont do/allow/get/use/whatever it. It would be awful for all concerned if something bad happened, ya know??? That's a long time for a sociable bird to be caged, but...until and unless they show a complete comfort/capability to hande anything that might happen... I wouldn't do it. That's just my humble paranoid opinion!

 

[SailBoat]

Fully agree with above!

However, our DYH Amazon would simply dis-assemble the cage and come out on his own!

A lot of this comes down to how comfortable your Parrot is with being out and having someone else putting s/he back into the cage.

First, you should have already had tried a dry-run! Everyone in place and a full walk thru with in and out of the cage and around the room(s). FYI: Teach them the Real Estate Agents tour of the Apartment with your Parrot. This is the bedroom and that is the bed, etc, etc, etc....

This will quickly tell you whether its all cage time or both.

 

[ZephyrFly]

Well they offered to have him upstairs in their living room for the duration, which I figured would give Pazu more chance to see people and be less lonely. I'm coming up with a do's and don't list that I'll sit down with them soon, I'll discuss a dry run with them then too. I'll try and do that on sunday and see if we can arrange a test weekend soon.

Also getting others to handle Pazu properly is a little difficult with me around. The biggest things will be getting pazu to step up and being able to put him back in his cage. But when he knows I'm around he tends to not listen/flys to me. Boyfriend is annoyed by this, we are working on this overbonding issue... although we've made progress we haven't tried other people handling him in ages...