 You really can't set out to get the perfect bird for you without having that kind of experience. And yeah, there may be some surprises along the way. Hello, my fellow snippers and flighters. My name is Marlene McCohen. This is Jersey, allowing herself to be in this video today. For those of you who are new to my channel, welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here. I want you to feel welcome. So let me just tell you what my channel is about. I am here to help you love birds, make a commitment to birds, and help you better understand them, which I think is very important. And birds are extremely misunderstood. So please try to watch as many of my videos as possible so that you can get a good idea about the good, the bad, the fun, the not so fun. Let's do a couple of shout outs before we go on. I want to give a shout out to Janet Burr, Ryan Menard, Sky Tides, Marie Sharon One, and Zuma Dude. Thank you so much for being subscribers. It really means the world to me. So for those of you who have been following me for a while and you enjoy watching all my series, which is how I recommend to watch my channel. Go back to the beginning of a series and see what's going on. I think that this video is extremely important and timely to watch today. So we are going to talk about five reasons why you should volunteer at a sanctuary. Now, I thought this video was extremely important today, and I'm going to tell you why before we get into it. And that is because I have recently found myself with a brand new baby bird. For those of you who are new and don't know anything about me, I have a lot of rescue parents and I promote rescuing birds. Plus show you a little bit of entertainment along the way. Now, in this industry, there is a lot of debate going on. If you love birds, you know that there's a lot of people that are against going to a breeder and getting a bird. And there's a lot of people that cannot handle rescues. So in light of me getting Brando, I thought it was very important to make this video because I wanted to kind of re-go over where my values are and what it is that I'm trying to do with this channel. The parents in this world are in a crisis. If you guys don't know this, you need to research it. We have way too many birds that do not have homes. And on top of that, we have way too many people that do not understand birds. So on one hand, here's the birds that do not have homes way up there. And then here's the people that don't understand parrots, right? And here's where the problem lies in and the way I see it. We have people that don't understand enough about parrots to even go rescue them. Because let me tell you guys the truth. If you knew how many emails I got about irresponsible adoption, it would be an eye-opener for you. People that email me and say, I went out and I rescued a cockatoo. I don't know how to rescue. Let somebody have a cockatoo that has never dealt with birds. And I don't understand how they didn't do enough research to just go out and adopt a cockatoo. So there are a lot of birds in the world that need homes and probably will never be able to find one. And if they do, they will probably be re-homed because people don't understand how to take care of them. And no matter how much research you do online and how much you read, it will honestly never ever be enough. Now with my channel, what I'm trying to do is get you to understand how to make a commitment to your bird from wherever it comes from for you to get your bird responsibly and know what that commitment is going to take. That's why I will show you a lot of the crazy things that birds do. And I will show you a lot of the imperfect behaviors that they have. And then I will show you a lot about how to deal with it and also to entertain you because I need to bring awareness to people that have never ever known a thing about birds. And what's beautiful about this is there are many people in the world that like I was when I was seven years old, I never thought I'd be a candidate for a bird. I never wanted a bird. I thought they were probably useless, honestly. Not gonna lie. And now look at what I have to offer the bird world. And that's where I'm coming from. I want to spread the word on how amazing these birds are but also how difficult they are because there may be people all over the world that could rescue a bird and give it a beautiful home. But most importantly, I want to help you guys make a commitment to your bird, a lifelong commitment. I have made a lifelong commitment to my birds and I wanna help you do the same. So with that being said, no amount of research will prepare you for getting a bird. Nothing that you find online. A lot of these videos that you guys are gonna watch, my own included will never prepare you for what it's really like because when that honeymoon phase wears off and you get your bird home, they start becoming hormonal or different than you expected and they're not your babies anymore. This is gonna come in really handy and that is why we are about to go over the five great reasons and most important reasons to volunteer at a sanctuary, a shelter, or a parrot rescue before getting a bird. So the first reason is hands on experience. This is so important with birds. I don't wanna like compare having a bird to lion-taming but if you notice, there are a lot of people that have sanctuaries and are extremely good with animals that me and you would never really get to have those kind of interactions with but there are people out there with a certain amount of skills and talent to do so. And I believe that although it's not as dangerous, it's definitely as important to have the skills to work with parrots because they are still wild. They're only two generations removed from the wild at all. They're not like dogs and cats at all. And if you don't understand them, they're going to be re-homed or returned again. The success rate for keeping a parrot for its entire life is extremely, extremely low and there's just not enough education out there. And if you go volunteer at a sanctuary, you will get hands on experience with birds that will be unlike anything else. You can also work at a bird store as well and just learn how difficult these birds are. And another thing you're gonna learn from working in a sanctuary or helping out is really how often they get re-homed, how often they come back, how unprepared people are before they take birds home. I can't stress this enough. It's unbelievable the crisis that we have and the only way to see it is firsthand which brings me to reason number two. You will be doing something great, not just for that sanctuary but for the bird. I have gotten emails from people that have thanked me because they have decided to go work in a sanctuary. And what I love hearing from you guys that I've heard more than once is that maybe you got to that place and the sanctuary people were already tired or not bonding with a certain bird and then you came in and that bird took a liking to you because for whatever reason, you reminded them of a previous owner that they loved or there was something about you that they trusted and this bird that never had anyone that could deal with it now has a friend. You're doing so much for the birds in there and also for the sanctuary itself because let's face it, a lot of these sanctuaries have hundreds of birds and not enough people to interact with them. And parrots need a lot of interaction all day long even if you practice, engage, not cage. Remember the engaged part, you got to be engaging with the bird all the time, not 24 hours a day, but you have to have cultivated a bird that can also entertain itself without needing to be on you. These are the things that are extremely important which brings me to reason number three. You will find out pretty quickly if having a bird is right for you. You may love birds. I have friends that come over here and love my birds. They wanna talk about the birds. They wanna interact with the birds. They are so aware of all the talents of all of my birds. They seemingly don't get tired from playing with the birds. They wanna feed the birds. They help me put the birds to bed. For some reason, all of my friends are involved in this. Like when my friends are over, like I include them and part of the reason I'm doing that is cause I'm getting them used to in case I need a bird sitter or any kind of emergency. I have friends that seemingly never get tired of the birds but they don't have birds themselves and when they go home, they get to go home and it's just like people that love kids, maybe you love them but not enough to have the responsibility. So this will kind of be telling and you will start to understand that, yeah, maybe you are the right person to go and bond with a bird but not the right person to bring one home which leads me to my next reason. You might find the bird that you're gonna bring home. You may go in there and really have the time to bond and discover the bird that has bonded with you. A lot of times people go into, let's say a bird store and they set out to get a parrot and they have this specific idea of the kind of bird that they want because they saw a bird dancing on YouTube or they saw a bird talking or they heard that African Grey's talk so they set out to go get that kind of bird and that kind of bird may not be the right bird for them because birds have such different personalities and different temperaments. Every species is so different and then within each species, every bird is different. They all have their own personalities, their own history and their own ideas of who they are. Depending on how long you are with the bird, you're going to imprint that on them or somebody else may have imprinted on them already. You may go in there and really get the chance to freely bond with the perfect bird for you. It's almost like the perfect situation for you to be like the bachelor or the bachelorette and all of these birds are there and one chose you and why would you turn down the one that chose you to go for someone else that is more difficult? You wouldn't and a lot of people don't have that opportunity when they are looking into getting birds and a lot of people don't have guidance when they set out to go get a bird. Obviously I'm passionate about rehoming, I'm passionate about adopting parrots and I feel extremely confident in my skills to take care of all sorts of birds with all sorts of behavioral problems and build up their confidence, which is one of the most important things because a non-confident bird is going to be needy, stressed, plucking, all sorts of different things and depending on where they came from and what their habits are, it may be impossible to change. But at the same time, you need to know who you are and what you can handle and I believe that only a sanctuary is going to be able to give you that. It's going to be able to give you choices and a lot of knowledge and a lot of firsthand experience with parrots which really leads itself to my last reason and believe me, there's a million other reasons why you should go work at a sanctuary, volunteer at a sanctuary besides for these five but these are the five that I wanted to stress on and that is learning about different types of birds. A cockatoo's going to be extremely different than an Amazon and then speaking of Amazon's, Leo is extremely different from most Amazons. You know, just in his behavior and his temperament and then Vinny, my Gala cockatoo is very different from a lot of other cockatoos. So you really can't set out to get the perfect bird for you without having that kind of experience and yeah, there may be some surprises along the way. A lot of people think they want an extremely cuddly bird. I love birds so much that obviously I love those birds that want head scratches and I enjoy giving my birds a head massage so much but truthfully, I found out a long time ago that I am not the type of person that enjoys a bird being dependent on me. So I try to create extremely independent parrots that don't have to be on me to be happy which is extremely important and I found out that I'm more of an African gray type person but I came from a family that really loves cockatoos and enjoys the interaction and certain kind of affection that a cockatoo gives but for me, I don't need that. I need more of the intelligence factor by way of verbal communication and don't get me wrong, my bird doesn't have to speak at all on my favorite bird of my lifetime besides from my African gray George was you guys know my mustache parakeet who didn't say a word. So it's not really about that but it's about a certain kind of communication that different birds give you and you may not understand what you want until you've really experienced it. Cockatoos are considered velcro birds sometimes and personally, I think they're velcro birds when they're getting the wrong kind of stimulation but some people think they're gonna thrive on that and then they don't. Being in a sanctuary among many different species of parrots can really be beneficial for you making the right choice in the long run, right? What I'm trying to get at is that I want you guys to be able to make a commitment to your parrots and if you bring your bird home and they suddenly do something unexpected and a lot of times birds do things that are unexpected and change their moods and behaviors after five years of having a bird that can be extremely confusing. That's why to some people they think it's a great idea to go to a breeder and get a baby bird and then when that bird becomes hormonal and hits puberty, they don't know what happened because they had five years of this perfect little baby and then it turned the devil on them and they can't handle anymore. They take it personally and they don't know what to do. You could get a really quick education in a sanctuary. You would know real fast. I mean, just the people bringing in their birds and returning them and saying why and why they couldn't handle them and what changed in their life. It's all gonna be food for thought for you to think about your future and how your life might change and to be a little bit of an empath not just to the birds, but to the human beings that thought they were prepared and they weren't. So for me, the core of the problem is not just that there's too many birds and there's breeding of birds and then there's birds that need to be re-homed and they can't. For me, a lot of the problem is people's commitment to the birds and that's what I like to stress. I like to stress on the fact that when you get a parrot, it's forever. I want you to know how long they live. I want you to know how difficult they are but I want you to know how fun and loving they are because I kinda wanna reel in those newbies that really could be great for birds with the right education, with the right preparation and with the right ability to commit. I feel like this channel is important to watch in its entirety. So that you watch all the educational videos but then you watch all the videos that are entertaining and seem somewhat, wait, what? Vinny is dive bombing George and then videos that talk about food and videos that you can see how free the birds are in the house yet they're contained. I want you guys to understand every aspect of this. So I don't want you guys to just be entertained without educated but I don't want you to be educated without entertained. I want you to know the personalities of these birds and the potential that they do have because if it's so educational sometimes you come home and you may not know all the things that you can learn from your bird and what they might surprise you with. You might give up, right? I don't want you guys to give up on your birds ever. And with that being said, I want you to share this video and I want you to share it with somebody that either has a bird stuck in a cage that isn't aware of these things. People that love animals and need to be aware of the problems that we're having in the bird world and just generally share it to get the word out of how important it is to teach people about the commitment that it takes before getting a parrot, the commitment that it takes when you get a bird and also the struggle that these birds have or like a bunch of little orphans. I mean, they're not really supposed to be living in our house. I'm the first person to tell you that but I'm trying to improve it guys. All right guys, that is it. If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up, comment down below. All the other reasons that you think it's important to volunteer in a sanctuary, even a bird's door, wherever you can, whatever it is so that you can learn. Don't let anybody put you down for learning. Learning is gonna be the most important thing that you will ever do. Learning, reading, watching, hands-on experience. If you guys enjoyed this video and made it this far, please subscribe. It means the world to me. Leo wants to tell you something. What do you wanna say, Leo? Oh, he wants to say that he's so cute. Yeah, see, yeah, are you cute? He is extremely cute. You guys love my Jersey shirt? Jersey, did you even make it in this video? She was in this video. Then don't forget to check out my link below. It's www.paritiation.com and you can shop there. I love you guys so much. For those of you who are a part of my Flyders Club, thank you so much. Those of you who don't know what my Flyders Club is, it's my Patreon where I offer you guys Perk's early access videos, exclusive footage and such. And just like a newsfeed, also enjoy it because I get to share with you guys certain things before they come out and see what you guys think and get all your ideas. I love you so much, thank you, bye. Hey guys, I am loving the photos and videos you are tagging me in of your new feathered bun box for those of you who don't know, the feathered bun box is our new subscription box of toys, treats and other surprises for you and your bird. So don't forget to check the link below and get in on that. And guys, don't forget to check out my new line of organic bird food called Marlene Signature Blend made with tops for small and large birds. The link is below.