If your budgie escapes (a help thread)
Aug 14, 2017 18:05:15 GMT
sweetpea, rose, and 3 more like this
Post by Marianne Marlow on Aug 14, 2017 18:05:15 GMT
ESCAPED BUDGIE (By Rose and Sweetpea)
We thought that it would be a good idea to bring together as much information as possible vis-à-vis what to do if - dreaded event - your budgie escapes from its home. I wish that I’d had such a resource available when Marshall escaped, because (in my experience at least) it’s such a traumatic occurrence that your brain really won’t work as efficiently as otherwise it might.
So here are some pointers, which I hope others will add to, so that anyone googling “escaped budgie” can access all the information in one place:
If it’s possible to take the cage outside, with millet prominently on display, this could prove an invaluable magnet for the escaped budgie. (Unfortunately, in Marshall’s case, his cage was far too big to get outside - and in any case it was also poor Ian’s home! I did put out the travelling cage used for visits to the vet’s but Marshie always hated that experience so probably would have paid it no attention whatsoever if he’d seen it!)
Advise anyone who might see your budgie that a good way to capture it would be to throw a pillow-case over it. Also, if you’re able to get close enough to mist his/her feathers (and if the area isn’t full of predators, of course), that will stop him/her being able to zoom off immediately.
Print out as many leaflets as possible, for putting through local doors, sticking on lamp-posts or telegraph posts … anywhere you can think of in the immediate vicinity and beyond. I was approaching total strangers in the street and handing them a leaflet … Essential information to include would be a picture of the budgie (if, like me, you don’t have a colour printer, remember to include the colour in the description), your best contact info - and perhaps ‘Reward offered’ if you are prepared to offer one.
Arrange for the posters/leaflets to be put up in local schools (children have keen eyes!), corner shops, the local library … wherever you can think of that would be happy to display one. I tried both the main supermarkets in town, who said they wouldn’t put up lost pet notices but they did agree to put a notice up in their staff rooms. I also got the keeper at the local park - which has an aviary, including budgies - to agree to put one up, in the hopes that Marshie might fly near enough to hear the birds.
Arrange for an ad to be put in the local newspaper. Unfortunately, I was too brain-dead to get one into the first edition after Marshie escaped (comes out on Thursdays), and when I rang the Classified Ads department on Friday afternoon, they’d all gone home! However, a kind news editor took pity on me and actually put a small article (including pic) in the digital edition, which subsequently found its way into the print edition.
Nowadays there are loads of avenues you can approach online:
Register the lost budgie on www.parrotalert.com/
Also contact John Hayward, who keeps a register of lost and stolen parrots (see www.theparrotsocietyuk.org/buying-a-parrot/theft-and-investigation). His phone number is 01869 325699 and his email address is jh@ntr.supanet.com .
There’s also www.nationalpetregister.org/ … (I think that may have cost a fiver: I lost track!)
And petsreunited.com through which you can also create a pdf poster (costs £4.99).
Also www.petslocated.com/
Despite its name, www.doglost.co.uk/ does include other pets and its members were very sympathetic and supportive.
You can also post an ad on Gumtree for five or six quid (I didn’t realise too late that there’s a ‘Pets/Missing, Lost and Found’ subsection - I mistakenly put my first ad in ‘Community/Lost and Found Stuff’!)
And don’t forget any generic local online avenues, such as nextdoor.com/ and Facebook groups.
The escape of a budgie has been described as ‘every bird owner’s worst nightmare’ and that’s not far wrong. But the support you get from this forum at such a time is incredible … And whatever you do, don’t give up hope: there have been numerous occasions where a budgie has been found outside his home, and anything you can do to make sure that as many people as possible can find out where that budgie belongs is very much worth doing!
If anyone can think of any further points to add to the list, please don’t hesitate to add them.
Thank you to rose and sweetpea for this.
We thought that it would be a good idea to bring together as much information as possible vis-à-vis what to do if - dreaded event - your budgie escapes from its home. I wish that I’d had such a resource available when Marshall escaped, because (in my experience at least) it’s such a traumatic occurrence that your brain really won’t work as efficiently as otherwise it might.
So here are some pointers, which I hope others will add to, so that anyone googling “escaped budgie” can access all the information in one place:
If it’s possible to take the cage outside, with millet prominently on display, this could prove an invaluable magnet for the escaped budgie. (Unfortunately, in Marshall’s case, his cage was far too big to get outside - and in any case it was also poor Ian’s home! I did put out the travelling cage used for visits to the vet’s but Marshie always hated that experience so probably would have paid it no attention whatsoever if he’d seen it!)
Advise anyone who might see your budgie that a good way to capture it would be to throw a pillow-case over it. Also, if you’re able to get close enough to mist his/her feathers (and if the area isn’t full of predators, of course), that will stop him/her being able to zoom off immediately.
Print out as many leaflets as possible, for putting through local doors, sticking on lamp-posts or telegraph posts … anywhere you can think of in the immediate vicinity and beyond. I was approaching total strangers in the street and handing them a leaflet … Essential information to include would be a picture of the budgie (if, like me, you don’t have a colour printer, remember to include the colour in the description), your best contact info - and perhaps ‘Reward offered’ if you are prepared to offer one.
Arrange for the posters/leaflets to be put up in local schools (children have keen eyes!), corner shops, the local library … wherever you can think of that would be happy to display one. I tried both the main supermarkets in town, who said they wouldn’t put up lost pet notices but they did agree to put a notice up in their staff rooms. I also got the keeper at the local park - which has an aviary, including budgies - to agree to put one up, in the hopes that Marshie might fly near enough to hear the birds.
Arrange for an ad to be put in the local newspaper. Unfortunately, I was too brain-dead to get one into the first edition after Marshie escaped (comes out on Thursdays), and when I rang the Classified Ads department on Friday afternoon, they’d all gone home! However, a kind news editor took pity on me and actually put a small article (including pic) in the digital edition, which subsequently found its way into the print edition.
Nowadays there are loads of avenues you can approach online:
Register the lost budgie on www.parrotalert.com/
Also contact John Hayward, who keeps a register of lost and stolen parrots (see www.theparrotsocietyuk.org/buying-a-parrot/theft-and-investigation). His phone number is 01869 325699 and his email address is jh@ntr.supanet.com .
There’s also www.nationalpetregister.org/ … (I think that may have cost a fiver: I lost track!)
And petsreunited.com through which you can also create a pdf poster (costs £4.99).
Also www.petslocated.com/
Despite its name, www.doglost.co.uk/ does include other pets and its members were very sympathetic and supportive.
You can also post an ad on Gumtree for five or six quid (I didn’t realise too late that there’s a ‘Pets/Missing, Lost and Found’ subsection - I mistakenly put my first ad in ‘Community/Lost and Found Stuff’!)
And don’t forget any generic local online avenues, such as nextdoor.com/ and Facebook groups.
The escape of a budgie has been described as ‘every bird owner’s worst nightmare’ and that’s not far wrong. But the support you get from this forum at such a time is incredible … And whatever you do, don’t give up hope: there have been numerous occasions where a budgie has been found outside his home, and anything you can do to make sure that as many people as possible can find out where that budgie belongs is very much worth doing!
If anyone can think of any further points to add to the list, please don’t hesitate to add them.
Thank you to rose and sweetpea for this.