If you share your home with a macaw or a cockatoo, you already know how the phone calls go. You start ringing around for somewhere to leave your bird, and the answers come back the same way every time. The dog boarder doesn't take birds at all. The general pet sitter does dogs and cats, or offers to swing by twice a day to top up a feeder — which is no kind of stay for a parrot. And the one or two places that genuinely board birds cap out at budgies and cockatiels and go quiet the moment you say the word "macaw." For owners of large parrots in Newmarket, that has long meant leaning on a willing friend or simply not travelling at all. That gap is exactly why this exists.
Newmarket is well served for pets in general — there are established, well-liked sitters all over town. The catch is that they're built for dogs and cats, and the bird coverage that does exist tends to be in-home drop-in visits: someone letting themselves in to refresh food and water, not a place a big parrot actually stays and is watched. For a macaw or a cockatoo, that's not enough. And the nearest spot that can confidently take a large parrot for real boarding is well over an hour's drive away — a long, stressful haul for a bird before a holiday even begins. So genuine, specialist boarding for the big parrots, right here in town, is wide open. That's the corner we set out to fill.
Large parrots are our specialty, not a reluctant exception. We board macaws, cockatoos, African greys, Amazons and eclectus, along with the bigger conures and other strong-beaked companions that sit in the same category. These birds bring real personality and real requirements in equal measure, and we plan each stay around both. If you keep a species you don't see named here, write to us — the list is a starting point, not a hard boundary, and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit before anything is booked.
There's a reason so many services quietly shy away from the largest parrots. A full-grown macaw is powerful, deeply intelligent and emotionally complex. A bored or anxious big parrot doesn't just sit quietly and wait you out; it screams to carry across a room the way its call was built to carry across a canopy, it treats inadequate caging as a chew toy, and it can slide into feather-destructive behaviour within days. Caring for one properly means understanding flock dynamics, reading the small shifts in body language before frustration builds, and offering enough mental challenge to satisfy a brain that, in the wild, would spend its whole day solving problems. That's not care you can improvise. It comes from spending your days around birds, which is all we do here.
Every large-parrot stay starts with a proper conversation and a thorough intake, so we learn your bird's diet, its vocabulary, its favourite people, its triggers and any medical needs. From there the care is built to match the species. Housing is sized and reinforced for strong beaks and big wingspans — thick hardwood perches, chunky destructible toys meant to be demolished, never a flimsy one-size-fits-all cage. Diet is kept exactly as you provide it, because an abrupt food change is one of the fastest ways to upset a large parrot. Days include real out-of-cage time on a sturdy stand, foraging puzzles, and one-on-one company kept near the gentle rhythm of the studio rather than shut away. And every single day, a photo letter goes out — a few frames and a short paragraph — while we watch closely for any change in appetite, droppings or mood, because a big, long-lived bird masks illness like every parrot does.
Because big birds need space and focused attention, we keep the studio capped at two households at a time, and a large parrot is arranged ahead rather than booked on a whim — the considered setup it needs isn't something we improvise on short notice. Those windows fill first around holidays and vacation season, so if a trip is on the horizon, the earlier you reach out the better. Drop-off is unhurried: bring your bird's own cage or familiar perches if they travel well, its usual food, and a short note on routine and medication, and we'll walk through the whole plan together. Whether you're in the heart of Newmarket or anywhere across the neighbourhoods we serve, your large parrot is welcome. Write us a letter with your dates to check availability, and see our plain-English guide to what bird boarding costs in Newmarket.
Spots for large parrots are limited and arranged ahead. Tell us about your bird and the dates you have in mind — we reply within a day, usually less.
