In a little less than a week, I'm going to be driving across the country with my birds for a 3,000 mile move. Please send us some good thoughts, since one of my girls has a history of getting sick from stress (although I'm taking every precaution I can to make this transition go well for her).

Also, if anyone has experiences staying in hotels with birds, I'd be curious to hear. We're hoping to spend 3 nights on the road and we've booked non-smoking pet-friendly places for all of them, but I can't help being a little paranoid about the fact that I can't control what products are used to clean the room prior to our arrival.

Oh my. I seriously hope all goes well. I don't know how I'm going to do it. Good luck!

The hotels are usually OK. Just check to make sure there aren't any strong odors in the room before you take the birds inside. The tricky part is taking bathroom breaks and eating lunch, since you can't always find a shady place to park and it's dangerous to leave birds alone in the car. If there's another human traveling with you, one can stay with the car while the other takes care of business. A sheet or towel on top of the cage will help keep it shady inside while you're rolling down the road.

I've been waiting for you to come around so I could ask this question: how did the dissertation defense go?

My defense went really well! It's weird being done at work, a part of my brain feels like I'm just going on vacation, not leaving permanently. Hopefully it'll catch up eventually.

Fortunately my best friend is driving with me and then flying back, so somebody will be able to stay in the car with the birds at all times.

Now I just hope we can get Roo through this okay. Given her history of GI episodes brought on by stress, I seriously debated whether bringing her along was the right decision. But ultimately I decided that if we could ask her, she'd probably choose me and her flock. So that's what I'm going to try.

Congratulations on a great defense! You're not done with work though, just starting again somewhere else.

It might help if you can limit the number of hours that you drive every day so Roo has plenty of time to settle down in the evening. I'm not sure whether it would be less stressful to keep the cage covered while you're driving so she doesn't see the scenery whizzing by, or to keep it partly open so she can see you. It'll be helpful if she can travel in her regular cage so that much at least stays familiar, but quite often the regular cage is too big to fit in the car.

Yeah, unfortunately their giant flight won't fit but they are pretty accustomed to their travel cage. The vet is putting her on Reglan for a week, so hopefully that helps. We're aiming to drive about 10 hours each day, which I hope splits the difference between "not too long" and not drawing the trip out more than it needs to be.

3K mile move, sounds great! For most people maybe it's not, but I am a nomad at heart so I love the image of you and your friend driving across states, deserts and what else with a flock. I will definitely be thinking of you all sending good thoughts and please take pictures!!!! Many of them!!!!

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Good luck with the journey......
Our birds/pets are stronger and adapt
better than we think

I clipped Odette's wings for her safety during our trip and transition to a new place (she has a history of panicking and crashing when she's in an unfamiliar space). Fortunately I don't think she's holding too much of a grudge.

You guys look so happy together!