Getting Started All Over Again

[pacoparrot]

When I was much younger I stumbled into the world of breeding small birds when my cockatiels started laying eggs. I bred cockatiels and lovebirds for about 2 years after I did tons of research and connected with some actual breeders to get the best information possible. It's been about 10 years and I have not stopped owning birds but I haven't dealt with breeding in that time. I want to start breeding different species for good reason. There is not a whole lot of options when it comes to buying birds in my surrounding area right now. There is this huge breeder that is basically taking advantage of this but they charge insanely high prices and they do shady things that I don't agree with. I want to offer the growing community of bird people a more homegrown option where the babies are raised in a house and get individual attention. I am in contact with someone that has an abundance of young breeder birds that I would like to buy a pair or two from. I also have a young pair of cockatiels that I plan on setting up once they mature. I'm planning on breeding lovebirds and cockatiels to start. Possibly canaries as well. I know what I'm doing I just need to get started now that I am home full time.

 

[EllenD]

Being from State College, I know who you are referring to, the two women, one in Scranton and the other in Hazelton. They are not at all breeders, they don't breed a single bird that they sell...The are bird "Brokers", who buy unweaned baby birds from actual breeders all over the country, at wholesale prices because they are not yet weaned, and then they finish weaning them and then sell them for massive profits. I honestly can't believe that they sell any baby birds with what they charge for them. I actually drove to Raleigh, NC (9 hours one-way) to a private breeder for my hand-raised baby Senegal, as the only other hand-raised baby Senegal I could find anywhere near central PA was from those two women you are talking about, and they wanted $500 more than I paid the breeder in NC...ridiculous. But it is important that the public realize that these two are absolutely NOT BIRD BREEDERS! They have no breeding-pairs, they do not have to worry about eggs or even Brooders, as they get their babies after they are fully feathered, but just weeks before they fully-wean. Brokers, not breeders. Big difference...But they're making a killing doing it, unfortunately.

You're correct that there aren't many parrot breeders in Pennsylvania as a whole. I bred and hand-raised small and medium parrots for just about 20 years here in the State College area and stopped about 5 years ago, as not only did I no longer have the time required to hand-raise the babies, but with the amount of birds being re-homed every day online (Craigslist, Birdsnow, BirdBreeders.com, Hoobly, etc.), it's actually quite difficult to find homes for anymore baby parrots (I would never breed parent-raised babies to sell, there are already far too many non-tame parrots for sale out there)...

The best advice I can give to you is to think 100 times before you do what you are thinking of doing, and if you're not an experienced hand-feeder and don't plan on hand-feeding and hand-raising your babies from 2-3 weeks old, then please don't do it at all, as there are already far too many non-tame birds that need homes out there. The world of bird breeding is not at all what it once was, it's not done for the love of doing it anymore, at least not as a whole anyway, and unfortunately you're dealing with people like the two Brokers near you all the time...Also, you're close to New Jersey, which is absolutely filled with bird shops and pet shops who breed and hand-raise their birds in-house, there are at least 10-15 shops I can name right off the top of my head within 100-200 miles of you who breed their own baby birds. So try to see what is already readily available, what their prices are, etc.

I realize that you're not doing this for the money, and that's good. If you just want to breed birds for the love of it then that's great, go for it, just be aware that it's not like it once was. More and more people are buying live animals over the internet and having them shipped via flight. Less and less people are buying baby birds in-general, opting instead to adopt one of the thousands of adult parrots in need of good homes. So bringing even more baby birds into the pet trade as a "hobby" rather than an actual business, or on a grander scale, like some of the people on here who own very well-know, reputable aviaries and who are actually developing lineages and breeding their own color mutations and such, well, it's just a very risky and much more harsh business than it used to be.