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The history behind Casey's Safety Nest

co-founder Mary Essary's story

The story behind Casey's nest is a simple one. I have always been an
animal lover. AS a child growing up, I was the sort that always brought home the stray dog or injured bird.

I truly do not recall ever living in a house without at least 3 or 4 animals, most of which were strays or injured animals that needed a loving home. Things didn't change as I grew older. I think over the years friends and family alike knew to call on Mary when an animal needed rescuing.

Thankfully, my husband and children are blessed with the animal lover gene as well. One laid back afternoon my husband and I were out shopping.
We decided to go into a pet store. Little did we know that day, life as we knew it had just come to an end.

Her name was Maggie. She was an orange-winged amazon. She was a dirty, skinny, sickly creature. She bit me, she squawked at me, she ran from me.

She did everything she could to try to get this crazy red-headed "customer" to either go away or give her some junk food.

She wasn't exactly the most pleasant creature on earth.

I didn't see any of that! I saw the most beautiful green creature on earth. I saw eyes that looked so deeply into mine that I couldn't turn away.

Weeks, and many visits, later Maggie came home with us. It was the day before Thanksgiving. By now I had researched as much I could possibly get my hands on about orange winged amazons.

I knew she was probably skinny, so I tried to "fatten" her up. A couple of days later, Maggie and I made our first trip to an avian vet.


Maggie in Early stages of Treatment

I wonder now what this wonderful vet thought of me so PROUD of my beautiful bird that I had no clue was a very sick girl.
Turns out that she had a really bad vitamin A deficiency as well as a horrible infection that seemed to linger forever. Maggie is now a healthy happy, very spoiled baby.
I truly don't know how we survived before she came in and changed my life forever!


Back in Tip Top condition (and very spoiled)

Having been through all of this with Maggie, I realized what a need there was for education about pet birds and what a great need there was for families who could take in birds like my Maggie if things hadn't turned out.

We were lucky. I took the time to do what was right for my feather daughter and fell in love. So many birds are bought by people because they are intriguing.
 
When the newness wears off, the birds are found to be too much trouble and they are left in cages ignored. If they are lucky, they go back to the pet shop or are given to someone else and the cycle starts again. In many cases, being rehomed dozens of times throughout their lives.

MY mind reeled with unanswered questions. HOW come no one knew this bird was sick? How many other people just like me get a bird like Maggie and never realize that birds really need vet visits, and time with family etc? How come you hear of all the homeless dogs, cats, all the shelters for them? But not birds?

How come there aren't organizations out there to teach people like myself that birds are even more intelligent than mans best friend?

My co-founder and best friend Lynda was the brunt of all my unanswered questions. And she finally said "Why are we sitting here asking questions that we can't answer?"
Let's do something to help change that"

Thus Casey's Safety Nest was born...

And the rest, as they say... is history.