The first visit to Iowa Parrot Rescue gives us a good insight into your home life, your expectations and preferences, time constraints, and an opportunity to figure out what bird(s) may be a good fit. We often go over dietary requirements for the species you are interested in, as well as caging, toys, perches, time requirements, noise level, and many more factors. You’ll have the opportunity to meet everyone and hear their stories. It’s a good idea to bring a list of questions you have regarding specific birds or species, or general questions about care and temperaments.

After the first visit, provided things go well, we will schedule someone to do a home visit. Our safe home checklist below is something you can read ahead of time so you know what to expect during this and how to prepare. This is another good time to discuss caging and placement of the cage. This can vary depending on the bird you want to bring home, so having a plan ahead of time will be beneficial to you. We don’t expect you to have a cage prepared during your actual home visit if you aren’t sure yet what bird you’ll be bringing home. Most home visits don’t fail-only in situations that cannot be fixed immediately like evidence of smoking or mold damage to the house. You may have things to change before adopting, but we ensure you have the time to do this if everything else checks out.

Once the home visit is complete, we can move forward with your second visit here. This visit consists of much more hands-on time with the bird/s of interest. Sometimes the bird chooses pretty quickly and they go home faster than expected (even the second visit). It’s better to plan to make at least three trips here so you can really form a relationship and be confident in your decision to adopt. Remember-it truly is like bringing home a toddler in many cases. The smallest birds here will live 20-30 years, the largest over 80. It’s not a process to rush into and we will be sure that you don’t feel pressured into taking or not taking a bird before you are ready. We want to work together to get you the right bird the first time and continue to offer support well after adoption. There have been situations where the bird just doesn’t settle well into the routine at home. These situations are rare, but can often be worked through.

We get asked a lot about how much the birds cost. We don’t charge adoption fees, though we do encourage you to volunteer or make a cash/check donation to the rescue. We love for adopters to spend money on purchasing enrichment toys, extra perches, and a really quality, large cage for your bird. Some birds already come with cages and in the situation that one does not, we likely have a used cage available to sell.

Adopters should budget to donate around $300 to our organization to offset the medical bills. Each intake (medications not included) costs us $250 baseline and this adds up. All contributions are tax deductible and go right back into caring for our birds!