Why birds go to fosters first?
By Klaas Kingma:
We often get asked why we place surrenders with a foster instead of adopting them out immediately and if it wouldn’t cause more stress by moving them around more than is necessary. The reason why we do this is so someone with experience can assess the bird and see if rehabilitation is required or if the bird is ready to go into a forever home off the bat. Sometimes previous owners aren’t completely upfront about the reason for surrendering a bird. (We have had plucked and disabled birds surrendered which was a total surprise upon seeing the bird because the owners were embarrassed to tell us). This also alleviates the stress of needing to adopt on a potential adopter if they didn’t get on well with the bird or couldn’t deal with the issues due to their environment or own flock. By placing them with a foster we are able to assess, rehabilitate, convert their diet and at the very least start with some training. We also take every bird to an avian vet to ensure there are no underlying illnesses or issues and in the case of there being an issue we like to inform the potential adopters of this issue and the fact that they might be adopting a bird who needs ongoing medication or more regular vet visits. Placing them in foster care also makes them more accepting of different people, birds and spaces. When someone adopts a bird from us and we are unsure if the match is something that will work long-term we ask them to sign a foster-to-adopt agreement. This agreement is like a trial period of about 3 months to see if the addition would be made permanent or not. Through doing this we allow for failure should a bird not be the perfect match but we also give them the chance to settle in to their environment to have a true assessment of their needs. One example of why we do this is TinTin the African Grey in Cape Town. He was surrendered by a heartbroken owner because he had started becoming extremely aggressive towards her. He was then moved to a short-term foster while we tried to find a foster. Here he was an angel and even started training willingly. He then moved into a home with a potential adopter but once he settled in it started looking like it wasn’t the amazing match we’d hoped for. He is now with another foster and doing so well and has taken to training like an absolute champ.
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