Leaving my Lovebird for a Bit

[Tehacc]

I have had this lovebird for around eight months (unsure of gender, referring as "her"), and I absolutely love her.

My family and I work from home, so we always have her flying around the home, eating fresh foods, and bonding with us. She is always sitting on one of our shoulders or playing beside us. When she is inside her cage, we make sure the cage is in the same room as us. She is very bonded with us, but she also doesn't do too well with strangers.

Unfortunately, a critical situation has come up, so my entire family will have to leave in a couple of days for around 3.5 weeks, and we cannot bring her as we are flying for over 12 hours. One of our family friends is taking her in, but I have some questions and concerns and would love to get some advice.

1. She does not do too well around strangers; how can we help her adapt? Since this is such short notice,
2. My friends are willing to keep her outside for 2-3 hours per day, at least six days per week. Will she be okay, considering she is used to being out and around at least 5+ hours a day?
3. Will she forget us?

I would love your advice. Thanks

 

[wrench13]

Sorry that your situation has abruptly changed. No, your parrot will not forget you, that is 100% certain. Try to have the bird sitter come over a few times before you leave. But most importantly, explain to your parrot a few days before you leave that you are leaving for X amount of time and use some sort of visual aid to represent the amount of time, fingers, pool balls, anything, and do it few a few days before you leave. You would be surprised how much they understand. If I neglect to do this, by Amazon Salty treats me like garbage for a week or more when I come back. If I do it, he is miffed for a day or 2. You can use Skype or other conferencing program to set up a call with your parrot, they see video quite well.