Terms
No fine print, no lawyer-speak you need a dictionary for. This is the same deal I describe everywhere else on the site, written down in one place so we both know where we stand before your bird moves into the quiet room.
I am Rajan Gill, and I run Lakeshore Bird Care — one boarding room in Burlington, Ontario, for small caged birds. When you book a stay with me, these are the terms you are agreeing to. Sending a booking request and dropping your bird off means you have read this and you are fine with it.
What I take, and what I do not
I board small caged birds only: budgies and parakeets, cockatiels, finches, canaries, lovebirds, parrotlets, small conures such as green-cheeks and suns, and diamond doves. That is the list. I do not take macaws, cockatoos, African Greys, Amazons, Eclectus, Pionus, large conures, raptors, waterfowl, or poultry. If your bird is bigger than a small conure, I am not your guy, and I will say so — every time, no hard feelings. Book a full-service avian boarder for the big parrots.
Booking is by message, and it is not confirmed until I say so
Every booking goes through the form on the Book a Stay page or by email at info@lakeshorebirdcare.ca. There is no phone consultation, no meet-and-greet, and no walk-ins. You send me your dates, your bird type, and any notes, and I reply within a business day with a yes or a no.
Sending the form does not book anything. The stay is only confirmed once I message you back and say yes. Until you have that reply, you do not have a spot — so please do not assume the dates are held just because you hit submit. During busy holiday weeks I may decline new bookings outright if the room is full, and that is not personal, it is just the room being full.
The price: $50 flat, per cage, per trip
This is the simple part. It is $50 flat per cage for any trip between 3 and 21 nights — three nights or three weeks, same fifty dollars. Up to three small birds share one cage at that flat rate. The length of the stay inside that window does not change the price, and there are no add-on fees: no enrichment fee, no photo-update package, no holiday surcharge, no care-journal charge.
For stays shorter than 3 nights or longer than 21 nights, the rate is $12 per cage, per day. If you want me to check on a bird in your own Burlington home instead of boarding it here, that is a $7 drop-in visit, in-Burlington only. A fourth bird that will not comfortably share one cage may need a second cage at the same rate — I will tell you up front if I think that is the case.
If I ever change these prices, the website changes first, never your invoice. The number you were quoted when I confirmed your booking is the number you pay.
Paying
Payment is due at pickup, not when you book. Cash or e-transfer, settled in person when you collect your bird. There is nothing to pay online and no deposit to send through this website. Whatever rate I confirmed in your booking reply is what is owed at the end of the stay.
Dropping off and picking up
Drop-off is about five minutes and pickup is about five minutes. Your bird comes in its own clean cage, with enough of its usual seed or pellet mix for the whole stay, and a written note of its food routine and any medication and dosing. I keep birds in the cage they arrive in, in a quiet room, for the length of the stay — there is no out-of-cage time, no play gym, and no supervised flight. That is the service, plainly stated, and it is the reason the price is what it is.
Please come at a time we have agreed on. This is one person running one room, not a front desk open all hours. If you are going to be late for pickup, message me. A bird left well past an agreed pickup with no word, and no payment, still has to be fed and cared for, and I will keep doing that — but the daily rate may apply to the extra days.
What you are responsible for
You know your bird and I do not, so a few things are on you. Your bird should be healthy and not visibly sick when you drop it off — boarding is not the place to nurse a bird through an illness, and a contagious bird puts every other cage in the room at risk. Tell me the truth about its health, its diet, and any medication and exactly how to give it. Send enough of its own food for the whole trip so I am not switching its diet mid-stay. And leave me a way to reach you while you are away.
If your bird has a condition that needs hands-on medical care, or medication I am not comfortable giving, that is a stay I will turn down rather than risk getting wrong. I would rather be honest about my limits than pretend I am a vet.
How I look after your bird, and how I will reach you
Twice a day, every day, each cage gets its food topped up, its water emptied and refreshed, the tray liner changed if it needs it, and a proper look at the bird. The room stays quiet, dark overnight, and at normal household temperature. If your bird looks wrong, I message you straight away. If it looks fine, you get no news — no news is the good news. I do not send daily photos or run video calls; if you want to check in, message me and you will get a short plain reply.
If there is a genuine emergency and I cannot reach you, I will use my judgement to do the sensible thing for the bird, which may include getting it to an avian vet. Any vet costs in that situation are yours, not mine — I am boarding your bird, not insuring its health.
Cancelling or changing dates
If your plans change, just message me as early as you can. Because there is no deposit and nothing is paid up front, cancelling a booking costs you nothing — you simply let me know and the spot opens back up for someone else. The only thing I ask is that you actually tell me, rather than going quiet, so I am not holding a cage in the room for a bird that is not coming. If you need to shift your dates, message me and I will tell you whether the new dates still work.
I keep the right to cancel a booking too, if something comes up on my end or if a bird turns out not to be one I can safely take. If I ever have to do that, I will tell you as soon as I know, and since nothing has been paid, there is nothing to refund — just my apology and, where I can, a pointer toward another option.
The honest bit about liability
I take real care of every bird in the room, and I treat them the way my dad treated his lovebirds — fed, watered, watched, kept quiet. But birds are living, fragile animals, and even with good care, things can go wrong that nobody could have prevented: a bird can fall ill, hurt itself, or pass away from an underlying condition or simple old age. Boarding your bird with me is not a guarantee against that, and I cannot accept responsibility for illness, injury, or loss that happens despite ordinary, careful boarding — including anything arising from a condition the bird already had or a health issue you did not tell me about.
What I am responsible for is doing the job honestly and carefully: the twice-daily routine, a quiet room, an eye on every bird, and a message to you the moment something looks off. To whatever extent any responsibility does land on me, it is limited to what you paid for that stay. None of this takes away rights you have under Ontario consumer law — it just sets out, plainly, what a small flat-rate boarding service can and cannot promise.
Changes to these terms
If I change how any of this works, I will update this page, in the same plain language. The terms that apply to your stay are the ones posted when I confirmed your booking. The whole point of writing this down is that there are no surprises — what you read here is what you get.
Questions before you book
If anything here is unclear, ask before you book, not after. Email info@lakeshorebirdcare.ca or use the form, and I will answer in plain English. I serve Burlington and the surrounding neighbourhoods, one quiet room, one flat price.