Just to let you know that with the best preparation and everything thought out ... your bird may not like you going on a short vacation and just leaving the radio on. We left extra food and water and even gave Bob a new toy.

We left on Friday at 2:30 pm and returned Sunday at 2:00 pm and left the AC on and a small radio playing and Bob was furious with us.

He pulled out a ton of poofies and gave us the cold shoulder on Sunday when we got home. By Monday he was very clingy and needy. He has gotten back to his usual self. No more poofies on the floor and he is chatty again.

We are going to go camping 4 days next week and Bob is going to my mother in laws to visit her for the whole time. He likes her and he will be much happier. I was going to have my brother stop in each day and check on him but decided he needs more than that.

Oh yeah, I have a flight cage and I went on craigslist and found a brand new, never used, vacation cage for $20. Very nice size too. 15x15x27 and it will be perfect for vacation times or a few days. I cannot take Bob anywhere in the flight cage.

Just be aware folks that our parakeets are like children and they don't always adjust to things even if we do everything we can to help them adjust. It also doesn't help when they are spoiled !!!

I have to go out of town for a few days every couple of months and I have a friend who comes in daily to change food and water and clean the cages. I have their TV on a timer and lamps on timers and if it is hot I leave the AC on set at 74. When I come home my parakeets seem to not really notice but they have each other for company - but my conure will just jump onto me as soon as I come in and open her cage and my pionus seems to want extra head scratching (he is not a lap bird).