Not finding a better home for my rescued Rainbow Lorikeet when I was moving countries. I had him since he was a baby, having found him with an injured wing in the middle of the road. We took him to the vet, who said that they were considered pests in Western Australia, so they'd just put him down; so I took him home instead.
I was moving from Australia to Sweden. I looked into bringing him with me, but how well would a tropical bird really do in _Sweden_, and would he be able to survive the stress of the journey? I decided to find him a good home.
I put an ad up for him on the local classifieds site. I was giving him away for free to a good home, with cage, feed, etc. My requirement was to meet the family first, and that they would promise to contact me immediately if something did not work out or if they changed their minds, and I would make other arrangements. I had hundreds of replies and went through them all. One of them was a family with a young daughter who already had one other friendly Rainbow Lorikeet. They sounded very nice, like they'd be an attentive and stable home, and I thought it'd be great for Goku to have another bird companion, too.
I met them and they seemed great. They were good with Goku. They said they'd take their time introducing the other lorikeet (I wasn't worried about this because they said they had lots of prior bird experience, and we discussed this point specifically to make sure we were on the same page with the introductions). They promised to send me updates and pictures, and we added each other on Facebook.
They sent a picture of Goku perched on their daughter's shoulder the next day and was so relieved because I thought I made a good decision. But after that, it was radio silence. I sent them a message asking how he's doing a week later, to make sure that all was good before I fly out. I got no response. I messaged again a month later, on Facebook, and got no response again. I tried again a few more months later, and then once a year or so for a few years, but they never replied to me. I wasn't spamming them demanding information or anything, just checking in at reasonable intervals, since they agreed to send me updates from the very beginning.
To this day I have no idea what happened to Goku, and feel like I betrayed him. I didn't pick the family carefully enough, and could have taken more time. I got too excited. I didn't even look at bird rescue operations, since for some reason I just assumed a regular home would be better. I'm certain that something bad happened: he got hurt, or they ended up not being the people I thought they were and sold him or something. Otherwise why would it just be total radio silence?
I was moving from Australia to Sweden. I looked into bringing him with me, but how well would a tropical bird really do in _Sweden_, and would he be able to survive the stress of the journey? I decided to find him a good home.
I put an ad up for him on the local classifieds site. I was giving him away for free to a good home, with cage, feed, etc. My requirement was to meet the family first, and that they would promise to contact me immediately if something did not work out or if they changed their minds, and I would make other arrangements. I had hundreds of replies and went through them all. One of them was a family with a young daughter who already had one other friendly Rainbow Lorikeet. They sounded very nice, like they'd be an attentive and stable home, and I thought it'd be great for Goku to have another bird companion, too.
I met them and they seemed great. They were good with Goku. They said they'd take their time introducing the other lorikeet (I wasn't worried about this because they said they had lots of prior bird experience, and we discussed this point specifically to make sure we were on the same page with the introductions). They promised to send me updates and pictures, and we added each other on Facebook.
They sent a picture of Goku perched on their daughter's shoulder the next day and was so relieved because I thought I made a good decision. But after that, it was radio silence. I sent them a message asking how he's doing a week later, to make sure that all was good before I fly out. I got no response. I messaged again a month later, on Facebook, and got no response again. I tried again a few more months later, and then once a year or so for a few years, but they never replied to me. I wasn't spamming them demanding information or anything, just checking in at reasonable intervals, since they agreed to send me updates from the very beginning.
To this day I have no idea what happened to Goku, and feel like I betrayed him. I didn't pick the family carefully enough, and could have taken more time. I got too excited. I didn't even look at bird rescue operations, since for some reason I just assumed a regular home would be better. I'm certain that something bad happened: he got hurt, or they ended up not being the people I thought they were and sold him or something. Otherwise why would it just be total radio silence?