WE GOT YOUR SURRENDER APPLICATION.

Here’s what you can expect:

We try to check email every day - but there are never enough humans to do all the work around here. So - you can expect to hear back from us within a few days.

If we are completely full, we will give you an idea of how long the wait will be via email, and what you can expect from us through the process.

If you are experiencing emergency and need to request an emergency placement override for parrots as outlined below, feel free to text us at (517)-898-1577 to ask us to expedite your request for surrender.

If you are requesting us to transport your bird, that will likely take longer than just bringing your bird in, as we have a small team and we have to schedule transports far in advance.

EXAMPLES OF EMERGENCY OVERRIDE REASONS:

• Death of owner - no one can feed/care for animal

• Terminal illness, owner entering hospice

• Animal is in danger of euthanasia (and if you threaten this, know that it PISSES US RIGHT OFF)

• Animal is in danger of abuse, elements etc.

• Animal found outside - we will look for owner

CHECKLIST FOR SURRENDER:

1. Cage surrender is a requirement. You must be willing to bring in the cage with your bird, especially if the bird is larger than a conure. We almost never have enough cages for the larger birds.

2. Please have your vet email any records to info@birdsandbeaks.org with your bird’s name/species included.

3. Please bring any leftover food you have for the bird so that we can convert them, and understand their past.

4. If you have any extra play stands or supplies, we’re happy to use them - so feel free to bring them if they’re useable.

5. Birds must arrive in a carrier or crate.

6. Birds will be quarantined in our back room shop area until they’re done with their medicals/food conversions and deemed to be healthy.

IF YOUR SURRENDER APPLICATION IS FOR BUDGIES
READ BELOW:
.

Unless there is an extremely compelling reason for us to skip the waitlist for you, you should expect for us to let you know we’re on waitlist.

The issue with budgies right now is that a) the pet stores are selling them for 20-50 dollars, and without any education whatsoever, so when people get annoyed with the sound, mess, (or fill in the blank), and the people go back to the pet store with them, they aren’t honoring a return agreement. This should be your first attempt if you need to re-home budgies - to go to the store for which you purchased them.

If they turn you down, please let us know the stores that are not allowing returns, so that we can properly address that with the stores, and in our articles. These stores need to be held accountable for selling animals without education. (And we won’t need your involvement to take them to task for it.)

As a general rule, we get between 20-50 surrender applications PER WEEK for budgies. We already have over 100 in the rescue. Until we can get some placed we can’t take anymore in, regardless of emergency reasons. We just don’t have the funding for it.

With that, we don’t typically even set adoption fees for budgies, because it’s so hard to find homes for them. So - every bird here gets vetted, and onto a proper diet, with toys and the whole program. That is extremely expensive for a rescue to do, and even more so with budgies because there is almost never any return on investment for them.

If you’re trying to surrender budgies to the rescue, your best bet is to try to help cover some of the costs for them in rescue. (Whether our rescue or any others.) As a general rule, every parakeet must see the vet, and will take upwards of a year average to find a home, if they ever do. Rescues are non-profit, and it’s just cost prohibitive to fill up with them.

We’re working on some training ideas to see if we can’t spark some interest in budgies for people to be able to work with them, and hopefully keep them in the homes. Let us know if you would like information on training to help facilitate your budgies to stay in the home with you.