Originally Posted by
2birds
Speaking of traveling with birds, it reminds me of the scenario of when my mother and I were moving from southern California to Minnesota.
I was 15 and was riding with my mother in a pickup truck pulling a travel trailer. The dogs were in the back of the truck with a topper on it and the birds were in the travel trailer. We had a DYH amazon and a chattering lory. My uncle and his daughter were driving in front of us pulling a u-haul type trailer. We were traveling across the desert and my mom was getting hit pretty hard with allergies so she took a contact. Remember those allergy pills that would put you to sleep? Well, needless to say, she started getting drowsy and eyes closing and she started heading towards the edge of the road. She snapped out of it but over corrected and the trailer started jackknifing. The truck was rolling on two wheels for a couple of seconds and then went back down but the trailer hitch ball broke and we lost the trailer. It ended up all over the road. We leaped out of the truck, went running back there to find stuff everywhere, it was horrible. Well, Cleo the amazon was in her fully intact stainless steel cage, not a feather out of place and she was fine. Custer the lory was in his cage but it was smashed flat as a pancake except for one little corner and that was where he was at. He was bleeding so I ripped the cage open and grabbed him. I just held him while he bit the snot out of me. I ran over to the truck got in and let him go. When he finally calmed down I was able to look at him closer to discover that he broke a feather and that was where the blood was coming from.
After the mess got cleaned up and my mom got a ticket we were on our way. We stopped at the first vet we could find to have the birds checked out and buy a new cage and eventually made it to MN. with everyone alive.
The moral of the story is, those cages saved their lives for sure. It certainly was a horrible experience but nothing too important was lost.