A small, home-grown boarding retreat in Pickering for parrot families who'd rather hand their bird to someone who genuinely knows the difference between a sulking Grey and a sick one.
This started the way a lot of bird things do — with one too many parrots, a spare room, and neighbours who kept asking if we'd watch their birds over the holidays. The more Pickering families we helped, the clearer it became that Durham Region had very few boarding options that treated parrots like the intelligent, particular creatures they are.
Since then we've cared for companion birds of nearly every kind, from first-time budgies to seasoned African Greys with strong opinions about everything. A favour for friends quietly turned into a real commitment: to board birds the exact way we'd want our own flock looked after.
We've kept it deliberately small and family-run, right here in Pickering. No call centre, no rotating strangers, no question left hanging. Email the retreat and you reach one of the people who'll actually be caring for your bird — not a ticketing queue.
A quiet, temperature-steady bird room that holds its own through Pickering's lake-effect winters and humid summers. Every guest gets its own cage — no shared flock time — and a predictable daily rhythm so your bird always knows what comes next.
We share our home with parrots, so we recognize the 6 AM contact call, the difference between a bored Grey and an anxious one, and the early signs something's off. That's lived-in knowledge, not a checklist someone memorized for the job.
Parrots are clever, opinionated, and rightly suspicious of new faces. We let each bird warm up on its own clock — no forcing, no rushing, no shortcuts to make a nervous bird "behave" faster.
To give your feathered friends a calm, engaging, and genuinely safe place to land while you're away — and to become the boarding team Pickering and Durham Region parrot families come back to, trip after trip, for years to come.