I have always been very independent, self-sufficient, and never afraid of hard work. I have built multiple outdoor aviaries from the ground up and paid for everything myself. I have built the hanging macaw play gyms as well as Tiki’s stainless steel cage and Pele's new 12' long x 6' deep x 10' tall indoor flight along with bunches of other custom enclosures. This website was built when the sanctuary became a non profit, so every aviary, swing, and banana in the photos on this website was financed by the bank of Karrie since no previous donations were taken. The extensive vet bills, food, toys and overhead costs of the birds I’ve fostered also come from my own pocket. I have never charged an adoption fee for any bird because finding the right home was paramount. However, After decades of caring for my own parrots, foster parrots, and seeing hundreds of other organizations and private owners struggle in the parrot community.... I feel strongly that this is a necessary conversation before I agree to be responsible for providing exceptional care for your parrot for the rest of their life; or mine. And then also ensuring their continued care if they would outlive me. That is a very serious responsibility that I do not take lightly. As uncomfortable as it is for me, and perhaps for you as well, financial support is a necessary part of this conversation. If you would like your bird to join us here, you should expect to be responsible for financial support for 20 to 30 years of personalized care. I have no desire to "scale." I have no desire for staff; I am the staff! That is what makes this place so different! This is our home and your birds become my family.
There are only so many hours in a day. This is an element that levels the playing field amongst all people regardless of race, color, creed, financial standing, or status. In my opinion, time is the single most overlooked element of long term animal care! And for parrots - who are incredibly social, emotionally intelligent, naturally gregarious animals - attention isn't a luxury. It's a necessity to their overall well being. Which is plain to see when we consider how many owners relinquish their birds due to "not enough time." If we have others take time to do activities to enrich the lives of the things that we love; we call it a job. Teacher. Babysitter. Day care worker. Tutor. Maid. etc. And we pay them for their services. But for birds its often a non-existent consideration for their future caretakers.
When people see the birds here and their setup, they can feel the love. See the exceptional care. And Understand the commitment. We get offered, asked, and begged to take dozens upon dozens of birds every single year. But we still have under a dozen. Why? Simple. The ratio of me to them matters. ALOT. And I'm not willing to compromise my current flocks existing quality of life for "more". First class is more flight attendants to less passengers. Good schools have more teachers to less students. When we struggle in tennis or science or music - we take ourselves out of mass instruction and opt for a private coach or tutor. Quality over quantity. Individual care and attention is paramount here. Tiki likes to "shower" in the sink. Do you know how wet she actually gets? 3 feathers on her head. This is her at the end of a 20 minute bath. But there are buckets water of running down the walls and all over the kitchen floor! So I play with her for 20 minutes while she's in the sink while frequently checking the water temperature. Then spend 40 minutes mopping up the mess! #worthit for that happy face.
This is the financial consideration that I hear is used repeatedly to encapsulate the financial contribution needed to care long term for a parrot. However after 35 years of parrot ownership. It's extremely clear that this is not more an inclusive list for a parrot as it would be for a child. If someone said here are 5 toddlers who will never grow up - but don't worry, we'll pay for their food and toys. It would be easy to recognize that as a drop in the bucket of the total care required. In addition to tons of cleaning supplies, the necessary replacement of appliances that parrot care abuses! Such as vacuum cleaners and dishwashers, there are so many other things. "Fee for Free" article link.
If you directly adopt your parrot to another family or person. Then that person is accepting responsibility for their costs, needs, time, and responsibilities. This also gives them the option to adjust their quality of life, amount of time received, and even, the right to rehome them when they no longer wish to accept the role of guardian. With Wingspan Parrot Sanctuary, we are proud to offer an exceptional standard of care and life long care of your animal.
Consider if it takes an hour a day to play and care for your bird (which we all know isn't even close!). But for arguments sake. Say this employee who works 365 days a year, every holiday, every weekend, when they're sick, etc that we pay them $20/hr. And we never ever give them a raise. $20 a day for 365 days is $7300 per year. That's NOT including their food, toys, vet care, enclosures, perches, (a zillion other things) etc etc. Say we make food and toys $225 a month or $2700 per year. So $10K per year for the most bare minimum, not even realistically close, bare bones care. For 30 years that's 300,000! If you double those numbers for better care, that's $600,000. And this number leaves out so. many. factors. So you can see what we are asking others to take care of when we leave these intelligent, amazing, wild animals to others with no financial support. This is how care deteriorates rapidly.
Of all the areas of expense, the cage paper is one of the best examples to illustrate the trade off between time, quality of care, and appropriate financial support. Currently there is 102 feet of parrot occupied space at the sanctuary that requires brown kraft paper flooring. The Kraft paper is not cheap - at all. It costs over $1000 a year. JUST on paper that gets thrown away. The paper allows me to clean the cages very quickly. If I used free newspaper, it would take me hours. If I changed it less that would save money. But now the cages aren't as clean. If I made the enclosures smaller, it would use less paper. So what do you want to compromise on in regards to the care of your bird? I know I wouldn't want a smaller cage. Or a dirty cage. Or no playtime bc their guardian uses the day cleaning. So....it becomes money. So over the next 30 years, that's more than $30,000 in poopy paper trash!!
Water is one of the most used resources here. Yes, water bowls, of course. But also hundreds of buckets of hot soapy water for cleaning. Each outdoor aviary also has a full mister system that runs every day for 60 minutes The indoor bird shower system is used about 2 hours every day in the winter.
We are constantly adding gravel to the aviaries to have good drainage for good husbandry. Using Gravel for our new outdoor enclosures and for the foundation bases. I think I have shoveled no less than 20 tons of gravel by now!
We have fully assembled carriers here for every single bird under roof. Emergencies don't always give you time to prepare. As happened recently with the East Palestine train explosion. I'm so proud of these birds. We were able to load and evacuate 16 birds from the house in under 8 minutes force free.
We have 2 rabbit air filters here, which each unit costs around $600. But then every 6 to 12 months the filters inside need replaced. The replacement components are $107. Times 2 units. Once to twice a year. We could use several more for sure.
With free flighted birds who aren't afraid of exploring. This is always an ongoing battle! From Deci chewing a hole in the ceiling tiles, to Carat breaking the welds on his stainless steel cage we're always replacing something.
Believe it or not our quicklink budget is hundreds of dollars. Every toy, ever swing, every perch uses hardware to attach it to the enclosures. There are hundreds of quick links here. And we use stainless steel ones at $4.00 - $6.00 each depending on size.
I don't think I need to tell you about this! Everything from mops and brooms to F10 and simple green, paper towels, loads and loads of laundry and dishes to the heavier duty things like the pressure washer, steam cleaners, and shop vacs.
This seems obvious, especially in Pittsburgh. But when you have a 2100 square foot bird room with 12' tall ceilings so your birds can fly around like crazy zoomy airplanes - it gets expensive to heat! Then back up heat in case we lose power! Because of the dust we also replace the furnace filters twice as often and will likely need to have the ducts cleaned soon, and on a regular basis.
The kraft paper is absolutely essential for keeping the indoor aviaries clean in a timely manner. The holders themselves are hundreds of dollars, but that's a one time expense. The Kraft paper costs over $1000 a year. Talk about burning money!