 But most of all, what I want you to get out of this video is just the truth of how there's almost no solution for these birds, except for people like Rose. So just consider... I can't, like it's just the bird world that makes me so sad. Okay guys, so I know it's dark, it didn't take us that long to get here, but we were in there talking and chatting, because I'm excited. I haven't seen them in a while talking with all the birds and stuff. I wanna show you guys the toys. Before I bring it out, ooh, it's dark, hold on. Ooh, there's a little light. It's a big box of toys, another box of toys. I'm gonna get George to come carry the toys now. LP! Come get the toys, I'm excited to show them. Yes, so we have also donations from Planet Pleasures as well. They gave me a box to bring to you guys, and I'm really excited for you guys to see it. Then you have a feathered fun box. Yeah, I brought you a feathered fun box. It's so cute. Isn't that cute? So let me tell you about the box. This is Picasso, he's my bird that flew away, and so we did this, and it's like an abstract, because Picasso was an abstract, you know, artist. The reason we're able to bring you these toys is because we have the feathered fun box. So I wanted you to have the box to see what the box is, but I wanted to bring you all the toys. What box is your bringer? I don't know. Open it, let's see what it looks like. So this comes monthly when you order the box. So because, and so this is Dulia. Dulia was my first crocodile, and since it's Thanksgiving, I wanted to thank my first bird, you know. Oh, that's so cute. Oh my gosh, this stuff is great. Isn't it? This is great, Frankie loves this. Yes, I have all that. So what came in the box, this is for the large birds. Oh my gosh. Try to really mix it up this year with kind of like a foraging, a wind toy, this, but the box has a theme. So you see it's like the fall yellow Dulia. Right, right. Check this out. So because you have a bird, every time you get something for the owner, like, you know, for the companion of the bird. Oh, how adorable. Isn't that adorable? That is so cute, so cute. Isn't that cute? It's adorable. Hello. So there's a little block. Something for the owner, sometimes we have notebooks and like, you also have these, these are, this is a sticker. A magnet for your fridge. And there's also a pin. My fridge has now like what, four magnets, five magnets. Five, this is the fifth box and the pin. Oh, that's so cute. And your book is on the fridge. Isn't that cute? That is so cute. And the artist that actually does all this work, she's amazing. She's the one that also designed the box. The box? Which is amazing. It's beautiful, right? So a lot of birds like to keep the box and play in it. These are for you from Planet Pleasures. For Sparky. I think the birds are already excited. Sparky loves. Yeah. You could open it and pull it all out and like, there's just a lot of like really good toys. Planet Pleasures has great toys. And their big toys are really nice. That's why I like them. Isn't that cute? That is so cute. Yeah. I want you to see all of it. That is great. Oh. See Sparky loves Planet Pleasures. So this is all, yeah. Oh, I gotta tell you, all of us left with that one. She loves it. She loves it. Yeah. I had no idea it looked like that. So I want to thank Planet Pleasures for bringing those over here. Thank you. The carrots first. Thank you. If you guys wanted discount on Planet Pleasures, check out my link in the description. And also, I will put the code right here. So check that out. And now on to the box that we brought. I'm so excited. Open the box. So these are like, you know, toys that actually can last a lot longer. Sparky toys. Sparky toys. Oh, wow. That's something that we could think of. Like wood toys, more of these kinds of toys, and also really, really tiny toys. Oh, we have our food here too. Yeah. Look at this. This is one of my favorite toys. Oh, is that adorable? Isn't that adorable? We had it in one of all these we've had in our boxes. That is so cute. Isn't that adorable? Look at that. It's adorable. Toby loves these. That's the yucca. Yeah. Yeah. The yucca is amazing. I put little ones like this for your smaller birds. You said you had a bird that's scared of toys. Yeah. Sammy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sammy would like these. There's like baby steps. Yes. Look at this toy. Isn't that the cutest? That is so cute. So cute. Yeah. A swing. Isn't that cute? Oh, that's really cute. Very cool. Isn't that really cute? That's really cute. This is one of the toys that birds like they love. They eat this in seconds. Yeah. They go through this thing so quick, but it's like it's still it. Like it's a good toy for them. There's lots of little toys in here too that like, oh yeah. Like we brought you the shoes. Oh, the shoes are so cute. I love the shoes. We brought you like these little kind of toys. This toy, the birds that like are scared of like, you know. Just everything we've ever had we tried to like get together. Lots of little shoes. You can find the birds who love the shoes. Oh, and the tea. Oh, okay. This is my bird Jersey. And she, for her box, we did a bird Jersey's birthday theme. And this is an AVM tea. No caffeine. You can have it and your bird could share it. But the craziest thing Rose is like, it is so good. Like I thought, okay, we're going to put something together, but George is obsessed. Like I'll be like, do you want tea? He'll be like, no. And then he'll see me making this and he'll go, oh, I want it. You're making that tea. Oh, it sounds so good. It's got chamomile. It gives red raspberry leaves. That's really good. Sparky and I can drink this. Yeah. The sparky smell of the green tea. And if you put lemon in it, Jersey is a plucker. So I thought we'd go with chamomile, you know, like the calming vibe. And so it just turned out so good. So it's good for an evening because there's no caffeine or anything like that. Yeah. Frankie, you're going to be music. Frankie didn't play with toys at first when he came to us. Yeah. He had no idea what a toy was. So once he, I mean, we started off with smaller things, little pieces of wood that I cut, you know, untreated by anything. Yeah. As he learned to play, he went wild with it. He's like, I love this, you know. So he's been going through toys at a rapid pace. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Ten years. What kind of situation did Sammy come from? Sammy was very sad. I don't know if I really want to hear, but maybe people should hear. Sammy's people were getting divorced. Yeah. And she started plucking. They tried to sell her on Craigslist and they didn't get any takers. So the man was a plumber and he went to work and he told his co-worker that they were going to wrap Sammy in a towel and drown her because no one would take her. And so one of his co-workers said, you know, I'll take her. He always wanted a cockatoo. He did, but he took Sammy and he brought her to us. Sammy had a near-death experience. I think I'm going to cry. Come here, baby. You're such a beautiful baby. The balance is great. Head down too low into a bowl so we have to make sure that the food is up high for her. But look at you. You're here now. And you have a nice home. I snuck a kiss. I snuck a kiss. I kissed a bird and I liked it. Right. Right. And when Sammy was surrendered, they filled out Sammy's favorite food. Yeah, they filled out her favorite foods and it was Chardonnay and French vanilla ice cream. And they even mentioned a specific brand of wine. But I can't remember what it was. It's been five, five, six years. Sammy went nuts the first time she saw Rose's glass of wine. She did. I mean, she started twitching and slapping and screaming. She was having withdrawals. Poor Sammy. We didn't know how you get her off the wagon. I mean, what do you do with a poor little bird that's hooked on wine? Well, cold turkey was the answer. Because we weren't about to get her wine. So it's not only a rescue, but this is also a rehab. Yeah, we've had to do a few rehabs. Yeah. No, but it is. It is in so many ways. Like these birds are abused. They're fed the wrong thing. There's so much to it. Even birds here are treated pretty darn well. Often people make mistakes that they don't realize are bad for the bird. There's a bit of rehab in many instances. I will say that probably most of the birds we've gotten have been just fine. They didn't need, you know, they weren't abused. They weren't neglected. They were just situations that made people, various reasons. There's always a reason. Some good, some less than good. The reasons that I find that people have though, it's like, usually it's like, oh, we can't take care of them anymore. Well, yeah, there's that. I'm not giving him everything he needs. Well, if you had a kid, would you be able to say that? No. So why are you able to say this? Like, it's like, this is a kid. This is your family. We see. He's been with you for 20 years. The mentality is, it's just a bird. We hear this all the time. It's just a bird. It's like they have no intelligence. They have no feelings. They are just like a stuffed animal to some of these people. And I'll tell you, there have been people when we talk about how they want a bird. We've suggested they get a stuffed animal. Well, we just weren't going to give one of ours. So, you know, we say you should really consider, you know, if you really have to have a bird, there were some toy birds that were electronic and they talked. They made that chirp? Yeah. So we recommended that. You twist the thing. And then the other thing we would recommend is maybe you should just stick with like a hamster or, you know, a cat or a dog. Just something that, you know, you're not going to, it's not going to depend on you so much. Because these guys are totally dependent on us to do the right thing. And quite a few people don't do the homework to find out what the right thing is. So it's pretty sad. Birds like yellow a lot because in the wild, a lot of the fruits that they eat, yellow is a sign of ripeness. Interesting, right? I was finding here that beside which piece of fruit they want. Yeah. That was not good. And the next one is the one they want. Frankie was a wild bird. So Frankie wasn't used to any kind of interaction and really couldn't be interacted with. And Frankie gets out by the way. Frankie walks all around and hangs out. But Rose has had Frankie for two years and had never been able to touch Frankie and recently has been able to give Frankie head scratches. Can you imagine? People have birds for three weeks and give up. But with birds, developments can continue to happen. So it's unbelievable. I mean, if she can give them a head scratch now, imagine what she'll be able to do one day. And the thing is the more birds you have the harder it gets to give them the devoted attention. If she only had Frankie, hands down Frankie would have been loving in her arms already. This is just something to keep in mind. It's just like, how amazing that. And what a beautiful feeling was that, Rose? Oh, it made me cry. I couldn't believe that he was trusting me enough to let me touch his arm. Unbelievable. It was a little scary too. Okay guys, I want to talk to you guys a little bit seriously right now. Although we're here at Parrots First, obviously, for those of you don't know, this is where we got Merlin. You probably remember Rose and they have moved to Nevada. They did that because California is extremely expensive and obviously their birds are their priority. So they wanted to keep the rescue running and they are a very legitimate nonprofit, which you guys can totally check out. So they came here because their birds are the priority. What you guys don't know is that all the birds that you see here are rescues. But aside from that, they have a whole nother location here in Nevada with a lot of macaws that have come from deplorable conditions. It's really expensive to feed and take care of birds. If you guys see the way Rose feeds them, they have fresh food, they have fresh vegetables, which she makes them and same with the birds at the other location. And these birds need a lot of enrichment, which is why we brought the toys and we brought what we could and we're going to continue to do this. So those of you who are buying the Feathered Fun Boxes and supporting us in this way, this is our way of giving back. But I also want you guys to know that this is somebody who is really putting all her effort into the birds. If you guys are looking for a way to give back to birds that you know are in need, then I want you to really consider donating to Parrots First. And then one day I think I'll be able to come back and show you guys the other birds, but it just too dark today. And it's been like a long trip. But Rose is going to tell you about how many birds come from deplorable conditions. They're not used to getting toys. They're not used to getting food. Birds that come and they have only ever eaten sunflower seeds. Birds that have never seen the daylight. Birds that were locked in cages forever and covered. At this other location, they're providing them literally a cage-free life and it's kind of unbelievable. So I just want her to give you a little insight on what it's like to be a rescue. And then I'm going to fill you guys in in so many ways you can help even without donating, okay? Well we've had macaws that we had to literally cut out of the cages. They had been locked in for so long they had little feeder doors, so whoever was taking care of them could feed them and change water hopefully. But they were locked in there and nobody even knew where the keys were anymore. One of the macaws that we took in last year had been locked in a closet for several years because he screamed and he pipped his feathers so they didn't like to look at him. That's the kind of birds that we've taken in. Birds that were breeders that never had any human contact really, no socialization were used so that their babies could be sold. When they retire them and they're no longer producing they had no options. They either have them euthanized or they can find a rescue that will take them. And it's hard to find a vet that will euthanize a bird unless it's got a health problem. So we've stepped in with quite a few of these ex-breeders providing them a cage-free environment, all fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and just to be birds. To pick their mate instead of being stuck in a cage with a bird that they wanted them to breed. I can't even talk. We had a bird that we took in, Lele, that lived outside under the eaves of a house and she got a fungal infection in her lungs because she lived so in such a moist damp environment. It was particularly sad because she was such a sweet little bird. She was very energetic and she used to sit on my shoulder and run back and forth and go, pretty bird, pretty bird, pretty bird. She was completely naked except for her head and we had someone come and just absolutely fall in love with her. And it was one of those things we thought would never really happen and he took this bird home and just loved it and loved it and sadly about a year after he adopted her she was running on her shoulder back and forth feeling pretty bird, pretty bird and she just kind of dropped over and passed away. But that was when we found out that she had a fungal infection in her lungs. The owners did in the crops. It's like you were saying some of the conditions we've had the birds in would just break your heart. We've had birds that lived in garages and like I said this one was just outside all the time in the rain. Why would you even put it in a closet and close it up? Why would you even go through that process? Find somebody else to take care of it? A reasonable person would do that but people are embarrassed that it's my bird. They paid money for it and then there's also the mentality of it's just a bird. I mean I can't tell you many times we've heard people say but it's just a bird. It's not a big deal, it's just a bird. One of the macaws that we have in our car now well actually he just passed away but when we took him in the people didn't they kept him in the garage, a green wing macaw. They didn't even know that he was blind. He was totally blind. There were two of them in two separate cages and the mate was next to him and the green wing was totally blind. They paid so little attention they didn't even know. That's the second bird we had that was blind that the people that surrendered him to us had no clue the bird was blind. The first one was a cockatoo and I think we had that bird in the house for two or three hours and Rose said this bird has trouble seeing. The macaw that was blind had cataracts and they never noticed it but those are the kind of birds that are that we've set up this facility to care for ones that can't go into homes and some of them have things that they've been under such abuse all their lives they're not going to live too much longer but at least they can live free. I've heard of many situations where there's hoarders and they have a hundred birds and I know you guys take in a lot of those birds what do you do to take in those birds and find homes and tell me about your fosters and how you find fosters. Foster homes are very important to us we don't have a facility for anything other than the macaws and we need people to take the birds into their home and treat them like their own family so that the birds can start trusting again and care for them. It's difficult to find foster homes for a couple of reasons people don't have the time and if they do have the time often they will foster birds and then they adopt them and then we've lost a foster home because now they've got three birds and they can't take any more and that happens more than you would believe you know they fall in love with the foster bird and they just can't let it go. We do always need foster homes we need people that are ready to take any kind of bird that comes into our program and care for it until we can find a home for it. One thing people tend to not really understand is that it's not always a quick thing finding a bird at home either we've had birds that take six months a year we've had birds that we've had for many years and we're still looking for a home for them so if you are looking interested in fostering you have to remember that it too is kind of a long-term commitment we've had people say well I can take them for a few weeks well that doesn't really help us it's not like we have someone three weeks down the line it's not good for the bird either it is something you have to be more or less committed to doing because you could have that bird for a year. Average time to foster a bird before we find it the right home usually we say is about six months but it can go quicker and it can be a lot longer. I find like in my personal situation finding birds at home is really hard because when you know so much about the bird's personality you know a lot about the only type of person that would fit the bird's personality what do you think is hard about finding a bird the right home? Matching up the personalities is definitely a big concern we look at things like how much time will you have to spend with the bird how much space do you have do you have enough buffer between you and your neighbors to adopt a cockatoo we all the time have people that live in a small apartment who want to adopt a cockatoo or a macaw and it's not realistic well my neighbors don't mind well the neighbors might move and somebody else moves in and they will mind and we also check to see when we ask people quite frankly can they afford to take care of a bird do you know how much it costs to pick up can you afford to buy toys and the proper food it's very easy to find a home for a bird it's very hard to find the right home a lot of rescues won't take cockatoos anymore and you guys do tell me, I say you actually are really good with the cockatoos do you think that's a crisis what do you think is going to happen for the cockatoos of the world it's going to be very sad because some of the larger rescues have decided not to no longer take in cockatoos and their reason is it's too hard to find them a home and it's true it is hard to find them a home but there are so many cockatoos we probably get calls for cockatoos more than any other bird to place so you see like they have this and they have a whole other facility roses like literally moved out of California to afford to do this the other place that they have is a facility with a lot of macaws that obviously require a lot of help this isn't exactly something that I was 100% aware of like until I came here today exactly like how dire the situation is I just want to let you guys know if you ever wanted to support me I know a lot of you guys are like open a rescue obviously I don't have even though my birds are rescue birds I don't have that non-profit I don't have that capability I live so if you ever want to support our work with birds and rescues I really want you to take this opportunity right now to sponsor a bird at Parrots First Rose has the birds that need sponsoring you can sponsor them monthly or yearly up on her website at Parrots First and if she tells me that any of you guys have sponsored a bird I will also put you on my website and make sure that it is known that you guys have done that because I think that's the most amazing thing and also for those of you who cannot sponsor a bird or commit monthly we're going to set up a GoFundMe because I think it's really important to be able to help those other birds that are in the other facility there's a lot of macaws there that need help that have come from terrible conditions so remember guys $5, $1 you know instead of your coffee today we'll go a long way for a bird that hasn't ever had toys or really good food so that is one thing but there's another great thing that you can do without sponsoring a bird and without donating there's a major way that you can help these guys here at Parrots First help these birds and all the other birds and Frank is now going to tell you about that and how so far he's been helped so much with this we are part of the Amazon Charity Program smile.amazon.com and if you go there you can pick a charity there are quite a few there but we're hoping you will select Parrots First and a portion of every sale every purchase you make through Amazon that is you know actually sold by Amazon we get a small portion of that and I can't tell you how quickly it adds up I mean we have a few people who have been doing it for a couple of years now every time they disperse a check every few months we get a check and it's totally painless for you if they don't add anything on to the price of your products but we get a part of their profit not only do we get the small portion of any purchases you make but if you should want to just buy you know donate a toy or something we also have a wish list on there and that's right there on our charity page as well so all you have to do is go to smile.amazon.com and go to the link it says you know find a charity it's not hard to find it all just in the search bar type in parrots first and we'll come up and just click they're my charity and every time you make a purchase they will put a little something aside for us and it is really it has been a huge help and everybody who does it has told me it's such a painless way for them to help us because they can't necessarily afford to write a check but they still shop at Amazon they feel real good about doing it that way I hope this is something you would consider this is a way anybody can help I can't tell you how many times we've been broke we've had an unexpected vet bill that wiped us out and by golly the check will come in the mail and it would be enough for us to buy food and toys for the next couple of months so it's always kind of a surprise when it comes and it's always just a pleasant surprise I hope that you guys can create a lot more pleasant surprises for them let me know in the comments if you ever want me to do another video I can come back here show you the rest of the birds if that's something that you guys are interested in I just love making sure that you guys understand like just being transparent with you and letting you know what we've been able to do because of you guys buying the feathered fun box and you guys supporting me has been able this is just a small step but this is what your feathered fun box has been able to do today in the future it will do a lot more and on that note I want to thank Planet Pleasures for donating this other box of toys and those of you guys not familiar with Planet Pleasures absolutely like a no brainer for your birds your birds will love these toys they get to forage, chew just really destroy all sorts of different designs but most of all what I want you to get out of this video is just the truth of how there is almost no solution for these birds except for people like Rose so just consider the bird world makes me so sad I never wanted to just take a rescue and say hey this is who to donate to I always wanted to be somebody that I've been and seen the birds and their conditions and exactly what's going on and be able to bring you guys inside so you guys can see not a place that I'm just like oh donate to here like let me just like share a bunch of donations and charities and such this is my way of showing you who I believe in well thank you so much you know we never tried to be the biggest rescue in the world but we have tried to be the best at what we do we've intentionally stayed as small and taken in birds that we knew we could help there have been times when we couldn't take in birds and we still found solutions for them when it was possible this is not a job for us this is a labor of love we've been doing this because when we first got our little girl Sparky here we were given every bit of incorrect information there was to be given and we had to learn everything the hard way along with rehoming birds and doing a little bit of rehabilitation from time to time our main area focus has been to try to educate people on what these guys need and really what they need isn't that difficult or anything it's just a little bit of common sense they're not stupid animals they're not bird brains they're sensitive intelligent creatures and they need to have stuff to do and decent food to eat they can really bring joy into your life and it's been very very wonderful for us to help the birds we can but we also see a lot of sad stuff too I hope you out there never have to see some of the things we've seen just love your birds that you have and know that there are people like Rose who have dedicated their life to helping these guys she's the voice that they don't have and I'm just here to help I do the computer stuff you know and I help clean just want to make sure that everyone understands that Parrots first is still in operation in Los Angeles still strictly California operation we still need foster homes for the Los Angeles area and we have birds that are in foster homes now so I just wanted to make that clear that we are still we did not turn our back on the birds in Los Angeles I'm going to add our here because this is where we can afford to keep them one thing we were never able to do in Los Angeles because the price of real estate was have a house and a facility it was always kind of a combination and you know it's wonderful to be able to live in a place where we can have a separate place for these birds they can never live like they would in the wild but it's a lot closer you know it's a lot closer they don't get locked up at night to pick a buddy or a mate fly around the room no one yells at them for screaming they can scream their little hearts out when they're allowed to scream they tend not to do it so much they don't really need anything anymore they can scream because they want something they want something that's not good you need to understand what they want if that's the case or let them be who they're supposed to be I've also gathered foster homes for Rose and I'm taking care of a lot of the things for her we've already brought cages to our home sometimes people's birds die and they feel better donating cages so we take those in in case we can you know then help the birds that are fostered through Parrots first have a cage and such so you guys understand why I support Parrots first so much is because I've seen everything here firsthand and been a part of it and I have an eye into so many birds that need help in Los Angeles so just so you guys know what is being done all the time without you guys knowing it's just incredible what these guys do thank you so much we really appreciate anything and everything you could do not only for us but any other rescue that you may feel strongly about we're all in this together there are quite a few wonderful rescues even if your preference is a dog or a cat go and work with that rescue volunteer donate to whatever you can we're not alone in this it's a huge problem throughout the country again thank you so much so very much so also just to think outside of the box guys if you guys have businesses or run businesses that donate consider making it an animal rescue that you guys donate to I'd love for it to be Parrots first but if not just always remember the animals especially the birds the birds do not have a lot of voices so they have their own voice that's for sure alright that's it guys I love you so much if you believe in the message of this video please share it spread it with people let's help them reach a massive amount of donations let's be the savior for these birds in this facility I love you guys so much bye by the way don't forget if you guys are looking for an amazing bird food brand for your bird that is healthy organic and not full of food colorings and sugar and peanut smash check out Marlene's signature blend I did this along with Topps Parrot food we just launched in the UK Northern Parrots now sells our food you guys have been asking for it you've got it also Things for Wings in Canada sells our bird food right now I'm proud to announce and they will ship it to you I encourage you guys to check out my Feathered Fun Box it's a passion project it's a subscription box that comes with parrot toys for your bird and also special merch kind of like my dream box honestly I put so much into it I love that there's something like this for birds out in the world that's why I created it www.featheredfunbox.com I love you guys so so much thank you for listening