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Sometimes what you think to be in the best interests of your birds may not always be so.
I was going on holiday and was very worried about where I would leave George a Peonus Menstrus and Gerry a Peonus Jardine. All of a sudden it came to me, the shop where I purchased Gerry (a very well known parrot shop) advertised that they looked after birds for holidaying customers . What a stroke of luck!

This particular shop deals in thousands of birds each year and my mind was put at rest, who better to look after my much cherished birds than these experts? I went on holiday feeling rather pleased with myself that I had found such suitable carers. While I was away, I called the shop several times to check if the birds were okay and was assured that there were no problems.
When I came back from my holiday, the first thing on the agenda was to collect the birds. George's cage seemed a little dirty, but, he is bit of a terrorist and I guessed that he wasn't allowing them too near the cage, but, apart from that, both birds seemed happy and I had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong.

However about three months after, George became incredibly ill. He wasn't breathing very well and it looked like he was going to die, he just about managed to lie along the perch to stop himself falling to the bottom of the cage. I was scared witless and called out an avian vet, he took one look at George and diagnosed Psittacosis and was quite concerned that Gerry would have it too. After stool and blood tests it was confirmed George stood very little chance of pulling through and although Gerry had not shown any symptoms, he was in fact sicker than George and his prognosis was also very bad.

I was distraught, how did my birds contract Psittacosis? Then in a flash it came to me, the parrot shop! I explained to the vet that I had holidayed my birds there; he just looked at me and shook his head. I asked him why he did that but he wouldn't discuss it. I persisted and kept asking what the shaking of his head was meant to infer.

After much cajoling he confessed that there was in fact at least one case of psittacosis coming into his surgery per week and that the source of the outbreak was, yes you got it, the parrot shop! I was appalled, I asked him why he hadn't reported this to the RSPCA and he just shook his head and wouldn't discuss the matter any further. Why he hadn't reported it I'll never know, but I have my opinions that have a lot to do with money rather than the welfare of the birds, but, it's only an opinion and you must come to your own conclusions.

However, this story does have a happy ending. After spending in excess of one thousand pounds on treatment and visiting the vet for over three months, both birds pulled through and are still in good health.
So the moral of the story? Make sure you know where you leave your birds extremely well and ensure that they will not be housed anywhere near any others. Better still; try to get one of your family or friends to look after them.