Bird Sitter SF & Peninsula
Finding a bird sitter in San Francisco who truly understands birds is harder than it should be. Most pet sitters either don’t take birds at all or treat them like a fish — a quick feed-and-fly, with no real sense of what’s normal versus what’s an emergency. Birds are subtle, and they hide illness until it’s nearly too late — so the person looking after yours needs to know how to read those quiet signals. That’s exactly why House of Guineas is here.
Our veterinary-informed team, with backgrounds spanning wildlife rehabilitation to exotic veterinary hospital work, brings a clinical lens to every bird visit. Our founder, Alexandria, previously worked as an exotic veterinary assistant at Bay Area Bird and Exotics Hospital, where birds were a major part of the caseload — from cockatiel emergencies to large parrot wellness exams — and that standard carries through everything we do: every visit includes proper feeding, husbandry, and careful observation, not just “make sure the bird is alive.”
What’s Included in a Bird Visit
- Fresh chop preparation — washed, sorted, and portioned to your bird’s diet. Pellet/chop ratio kept consistent with your routine.
- Pellet measurement — your bird gets exactly the amount you specified, carefully measured at every visit.
- Water tower or bowl change — fresh daily, with the dish cleaned thoroughly each visit.
- Full cage cleaning as scheduled — paper change, grate cleaning, perch wipe-down. Everything goes back exactly where your bird expects it, since big rearrangements are stressful for birds — we keep their world familiar while you’re away.
- Out-of-cage time for birds who already have established free-flight or perch time with their pet parents. We stick faithfully to the routine your bird already knows.
- Photo and video updates from every visit, plus written notes on appetite, droppings, vocalization patterns, and overall behavior.
If your bird is on medication — oral suspensions, topical applications, or nebulizer treatments — we can administer it, gently and right on schedule.
Free-Flight Handling
Some pet parents have trained their birds for free-flight time at home. For everyone’s safety, we manage free-flight only for birds who are already trained for it — and when it’s part of your bird’s normal routine, we handle it with care: doors and windows secured, ceiling fans off, hazards cleared, recall practiced. The protocol matches what you do at home, not a cookie-cutter approach.
For birds who are clipped or who don’t free-fly, we focus on cage-side enrichment, target training (if your bird already knows it), and conversation/whistling time, just the way your bird likes it.
Recognizing Illness Signs
Birds hide illness — by the time symptoms are obvious, it’s often urgent. That’s why our team keeps a practiced eye out for:
- Fluffed-up posture lasting more than an hour while the bird is at rest
- Tail bobbing while breathing (indicates respiratory effort)
- Open-mouth breathing
- Discharge from nostrils or eyes
- Sitting on the cage floor when not sleeping
- Refusing food for more than 12–24 hours
- Significant changes in droppings — color, consistency, or near-zero output
- Unusual quiet or sudden change in vocalization patterns
- Visible blood
If we see any of these, we contact you immediately and recommend whether your bird needs to be seen. We know the local avian vet landscape — Bay Area Bird and Exotics Hospital in San Francisco is often the first call; Medical Center for Birds in Oakley is the go-to for complex cases. See our bird care guide for more on each species.
Service Area
We provide in-home bird sitting across San Francisco and the Peninsula, so your bird can stay settled in the home they know:
- San Francisco — Inner Sunset, Outer Sunset, Parkside, Pacific Heights, the Marina, SOMA, Cole Valley, Noe Valley, the Castro, the Mission, Haight-Ashbury, the Richmond, Forest Hill
- Peninsula — Burlingame, San Mateo, Foster City, Redwood City, Hillsborough, Millbrae, and surrounding areas
For Peninsula visits, a travel surcharge applies — the exact amount depends on availability and your specific location.
Pricing for Bird Visits
- 30-minute visits start at $85
- 60-minute visits start at $115
- Twice-daily care runs $140–$190/day depending on visit length and number of birds
For multi-bird households, additional birds are typically billed per house, not per bird, when care can be done in one visit window. Walk us through your flock and setup at the meet-and-greet.
Cage and grate scrub days can belong to us. Many bird families across San Francisco and the Peninsula book recurring routine care — weekly or every-other-week visits where their caretaker scrubs the cage and grate, preps fresh chop, refreshes perches and water, and does a gentle health check, so your time together goes to step-ups and songs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What species of birds do you take care of?
Cockatiels, parakeets/budgies, conures, parrotlets, lovebirds, finches, canaries, and most companion parrots up through medium-sized species. For larger parrots (Amazons, African Greys, macaws), we handle them when our team has prior experience with the specific bird — talk to us at the meet-and-greet. We will tell you honestly if your bird is outside our comfort zone.
Can you administer my bird's medication?
Yes. Oral suspensions, topical applications, and nebulizer treatments are part of our standard scope. Medication for birds is a precise art — wrong dose, wrong technique, or stressed handling can do more harm than good. We hold ourselves to the clinical standard our team learned through exotic veterinary hospital work, including our founder's time at Bay Area Bird and Exotics Hospital, so every dose is given gently and on schedule.
How do I know my bird will be okay with a sitter?
Birds bond hard, and they will absolutely notice you're not there. The goal of a good bird sit is to keep the bird's environment and routine as consistent as possible — same feeding times, same lights-on/lights-off schedule, same vocabulary spoken at the cage. Rather than trying to win your bird over, we quietly maintain the world they know. Most birds settle within a day or two and start treating us like familiar furniture.
My bird is a free-flyer — can you handle that?
Yes — we follow your established free-flight protocol exactly, and for safety we manage free-flight only for birds who are already trained for it. At the meet-and-greet, walk us through how you secure the room, what your bird's recall reliability is, and what your hazard-check looks like. We match your routine.
Ready to book in-home bird care? Call or text us at 415-484-6493 and we’ll set up a free meet-and-greet. You can also browse our bird care guide, our San Francisco Bay Area exotic vet directory, or our in-home services page.