I'm considering being a volunteer in rescue for part-time and seriously I would like to know opinion of all of you being involved in such a thing. I have couple questions, I would like to ask:
- How being a volunteer change your life, are you happy when you are going there?
- I do realize it's a work, cleaning cages, changing bedding etc. Do you have any time to spend and interact with parrots?
- How it changed your relationship with your parrots?
- What else should I be prepared for?

Any respond, thoughts from those, who are involved, will help me.

I don't volunteer w/ a bird rescue. But my opinion is that you'll learn a lot about different species of birds, their care, their behaviors from just being around them even if they don't let you interact a lot with them.

EC and I volunteer w/ a cat rescue. It is "sad" for the reasons people give up their animals. I saw this guy relinquishing his cat because he couldn't afford it any more. He also brought in what remained of the cat's supplies - super premium food, unopened boutique cat toys, all sorts of expensive stuff. All I could think was the cat doesn't really care that he can't afford to spend $300 a month on toys if only he would keep the cat. But I think our society puts it into our heads that we are bad pet owners if we won't spend hundreds of dollars a month on all sorts of optional junk. If you're frugal and careful, you can still give your pets the best life without being a bajillionare.

How it's changed my life - I appreciate our well adjusted, friendly cats a lot more. But I can't blame the behaviors of the shelter cats. The shelter environment is very stressful.

Other - I don't know how prevalent disease is in a bird shelter. But with cats, even with quarantine and vet checks, which Friends of Cats does, there's a degree of risk. My cats are all indoor and healthy. A few months ago one of them got ringworm and for a little while I couldn't figure out where she got it. It finally occurred to me that I must have brought it home from Friends of Cats on my shoes. I found out a few weeks later the shelter's had a ringworm outbreak.

No, I can't say volunteering makes me happy. I've met some wonderful people associated with the shelter, but I'm becoming more cynical that people are idiots. But, again, I think it's more a product of our throw-away society, spend-spend-spend society. I do believe people feel guilty they cannot afford $50 a month in flea treatment so they relinquish their animal.

Thank you Roz,
That was a lot of advice to me. I was counting, that somebody will write down about diseases.
Roz, and if I may ask, do you have an urge to adopt the cat you like? If yes, how often (I'm thinking about birds perspective and myself)

I was reading in different forum about lady, who was single mother, have kids, dogs and birds. She had to work double shifts to afford everything. She gave up Internet, dish network and all of that "civilization goods", but she didn't gave up her pets. After while, she stand up stronger with her home budget and she is proud of her decision, because she still have her pets! That's for me example to take.
We people gone to much materialized this days, that we treat our home pet like a thing, no need no more: re-home, give "it" for a shelter. Sad. Of course "we" I used generally, as for humans. There is a lot of us, who would do everything to keep our pets

As a volunteer I will say it absolutely changed my life entirely. Not only have I become the closest of friends with John and Jeanne (who own the rescue) but now live on the property where the new rescue will reside in a month or so. Aside from the obvious mentioned above, it has defintely changed me as a parrot owner. Previous to volunteering, I had only held my Jardines and Bryan's Hahn's. I had briefly encountered his mothers B&G and CAG but being inexperienced with larger birds, was too intimidated to fully interact with them. My knowledge of birds was limited to the ones I owned and info I learned online or through Bryan's advice.

Now....I think I've handled pretty much every bird I possibly could, from a finch to a hyacinth to a toucan... I've been witness to injured and handicapped birds and tasks that I was too terrified to handle without the help of a trained vet I now do alone and without thought (like beak and nail trims). I could probably draw blood if needed because I've had to hold so many birds while they were having blood drawn. I know how to clip wings, repair chipped or damaged beaks, stop bleeding (on birds and humans) and how to deal with angry or aggressive birds of all sizes and shapes without having much fear at all. It has been the most extensive learning experience I've ever had in such a short period of time.

Yes, it is a lot of work, like cleaning cages, feeding and watering and all the gross stuff in between, but the amount of time you get to socialize with the birds really depends on the rescue. We try to play with as many of them as we can because socialization is a huge part of building trust and rehabilitating them enough to be rehomed. But some of the smaller, less organized rescues or ones that don't have a lot of volunteers don't afford a lot of playtime because with lack of help they spend most of the time cleaning and feeding. So it really depends.