Questions about traveling with a new bird

MamaHen

New member
Jun 2, 2015
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Hi everyone. I'm a brand new Eclectus owner. Our family adopted Echo, a 10 month old male, 10 days ago. I've had birds before, but this is my first parrot. He seems to be settling in nicely. I took him to an avian vet first thing, and the vet found evidence of infection, protein deficiency, vitamin deficiency, and lots of stress bars on his feathers. He just had his last round of antibiotics/antifungals today. Starting probiotics today. He acts like he feels a lot better now. We've upgraded his perches (his too small cage came with a dowel and a sandpaper perch) and water bottle, added a sun lamp, added a heat lamp for his recovery period, and we transitioned him to a better diet. We just bought a big cage this weekend off of craigslist, and I'll be sanitizing and setting that up today.

So, now my questions. We are leaving next weekend for a 9 day vacation. We will be traveling in our motorhome, and once we're at our destination we'll be spending our time between our motorhome (sleeping and breakfast), my dad's house, and some "out and about" during the day. We would like to take Echo with us. We would have him in the motorhome with us at night and at my dad's house during the day. I'm thinking of using a 24wx18dx19h crate, and moving that from motorhome to house each day. He would be able to come out of the cage for at least a few hours each day when we're home. Is this reasonable given the fact that he's so new? I certainly don't want to stress him unnecessarily. What about cage size... can he stay in a cage that small for 9 days (the cage he came in is 24wx22dx34h).

We will have a house sitter at our home while we're gone, but she and her kids aren't really comfortable with parrots. I'm torn as to which is the lesser evil: leaving him in his relatively new, but becoming familiar, surroundings with unfamiliar people and no opportunity for interaction/out time... Or carrying him with us in unfamiliar surroundings, but with his relatively new, becoming familiar (he does get excited when he sees us most of the time) family.

Thanks in advance!

Lauren
 
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Congrats on your new fid!
Sounds like you are a much better home than he had. Eclectus have such a demanding diet with fresh fruits and vegs I'm not sure I could ever manage to have one.

As far as traveling so soon.. I don't know. He's still settling in, but leaving him with an inexperienced caretaker probably isn't wise. I'll let someone who knows ekkies respond!
 
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Thanks! We're certainly trying to do what's best for him. There's been a lot of change in his life these past few weeks. :)

Lauren
 
I took my CAG on a road trip 2 months after adopting her and everything was just fine. In fact, I'd say it was kind of good for her! She also had a smaller caage than that and did fine but she was outside her cage most of the time.
 
I'm going to be taking my GCC on a road trip in the next while too! hopefully everything goes smoothly for you. I personally think it's actually better for your peace of mind to take him with you. I just don't know anyone I trust enough to take care of my baby for more than a few days when I travel with my parents and fiancé. Have to start thinking about it unfortunately, because taking Kyo on my honeymoon to france would probably be very difficult.

The only thing I would consider is making sure to let family members know not to leave doors open etc when your baby is out of his cage. I took my old birds to my ex mother-in-laws and she was really careless about the doors >< made me so angry. Luckily none of them escaped.
 
I just wanna ask, what do you guys do about feeding while travelling? Just pellets?
 
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Thanks for the input everyone. We're definitely leaning towards taking him with us.

I just wanna ask, what do you guys do about feeding while travelling? Just pellets?

ZephyrFly, we travel in a large motorhome with a full kitchen, so we have a fridge, stove etc. We will just take all his fresh foods with us.

Lauren
 

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