Big box budgie vs. hand raised

[Terry57]

OMG! I can't believe (but I do) that an experienced budgie breeder would lose that many chicks! It is not THAT difficult to take care of and hand feed baby budgies. I don't recommend people do it unless they have to or are experienced (the only way to get experienced is to do it, right?) but with the right equipment, knowledge from studying, and help a phone call away, there's no excuse for a breeder to have that many dead chicks. So sad!

They were full grown birds, which to me is even worse. He said that he hadn't had a chance to throw them away yet. Ugh.

Woah!

That’s good to hear though! Maybe it was a regional thing? This was in south Louisiana.

Edited to add: we had… a lot of issues at our store. I was not a manager so I did not have clearance to bring animals to the vet. We had a lot of small animals die and it was really stressful to work there; it’s why I eventually quit. People would forget to give meds to the critters in the hospital cages in the back, and I was only part time!

It’s also where my experience hand feeding mice came from. We had fancy mice who somehow got loose in the store (wild mice do NOT come in “fun colors”, no matter how much the management wanted to pretend otherwise) and were breeding and nesting in the bedding and getting into the dog food. The manager found a nest and threw the babies in the grass outside. I took them home and hand raised them.

I am so glad to hear this kind of thing is not the norm, I’ve been kind of avoiding Petco when I can ever since because of that. I have a lot of horror stories…

There are some stores that are terrible here, one was at West Edmonton Mall and it was finally closed down, thank goodness.

Your story about the baby mice hurts my heart Thank goodness you saved them!
I'm not sure if we have Petco here, I don't remember ever going to one.

One of the bird clubs I was a member of used to have guest speakers come in to talk to us. My vet made a couple of appearances. They they decided to have a long time breeder give a talk, and this guy actually said that he buys drywall and feeds it to his birds because it is something that every bird needs.

I wasn't at this particular meeting, but man did I hear about it! My friend started a thread about it on the bird club page and all the comments were incredulous. It caused a big thing but at least we all got the word out that it is insane to do this.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

They were full grown birds, which to me is even worse. He said that he hadn't had a chance to throw them away yet. Ugh.


There are some stores that are terrible here, one was at West Edmonton Mall and it was finally closed down, thank goodness.

Your story about the baby mice hurts my heart Thank goodness you saved them!
I'm not sure if we have Petco here, I don't remember ever going to one.

One of the bird clubs I was a member of used to have guest speakers come in to talk to us. My vet made a couple of appearances. They they decided to have a long time breeder give a talk, and this guy actually said that he buys drywall and feeds it to his birds because it is something that every bird needs.

I wasn't at this particular meeting, but man did I hear about it! My friend started a thread about it on the bird club page and all the comments were incredulous. It caused a big thing but at least we all got the word out that it is insane to do this.

I just look this up and read that gypsum wallboard is loaded with calcium and is non-toxic for animals to eat!

 

[DonnaBudgie]

They were full grown birds, which to me is even worse. He said that he hadn't had a chance to throw them away yet. Ugh.


There are some stores that are terrible here, one was at West Edmonton Mall and it was finally closed down, thank goodness.

Your story about the baby mice hurts my heart Thank goodness you saved them!
I'm not sure if we have Petco here, I don't remember ever going to one.

One of the bird clubs I was a member of used to have guest speakers come in to talk to us. My vet made a couple of appearances. They they decided to have a long time breeder give a talk, and this guy actually said that he buys drywall and feeds it to his birds because it is something that every bird needs.

I wasn't at this particular meeting, but man did I hear about it! My friend started a thread about it on the bird club page and all the comments were incredulous. It caused a big thing but at least we all got the word out that it is insane to do this.

Gypsum wallboard is loaded with calcium. Sound nuts but apparently its non toxic

 

[Terry57]

I just look this up and read that gypsum wallboard is loaded with calcium and is non-toxic for animals to eat!

It is not good for them, even if it won't kill them. And no one should ever be advised to use it as bird feed.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

It is not good for them, even if it won't kill them. And no one should ever be advised to use it as bird feed.

I wouldn't feed it to MY birdies! Heck no! But at least if your bird is chewing up you walls you don't need to rush him to the vet and worry about him being poisoned!