Hmm

[Owlet]

(Note: this is not directed at anyone in particular, just a general concern)

There's this thing that's bothered me for quite some time now. I've been seeing a lot of 'breeders' around that don't seem to know what they're doing really at all. This isn't even restricted to the parrot forums, I use to frequent a rat forum and they had completely banned discussing intentional breeding because so many naive young folk would want to breed their rats and ignore everyone who advised them against it because the set up / diet / etc wasnt appropriate and then they'd cry when the mother killed the pups and they didn't know why. I'm not opposed to young folk breeding but they've gotta know what they're doing and have a good set up and be able to act if things go wrong. This isn't limited to young people either, I've seen my fair share of adults not knowing what they're doing and wanting to breed. Idk it just irks me when the pet trades is already in bad shape and maybe these people mean well but if you don't do your research and such it just makes it the tiniest bit worse.

TLR: everyone can breed, but not everyone should.

 

[texsize]

I think I know what you are saying and I agree with it up to a point.
Putting a male and female _______ together and a let's see what happens attitude is irresponsible. I don't think anyone would disagree.

But speaking for myself.
I did as much reading and research as I could about breeding cockatiels. There was no breeders I could speak to directly and no possibility of mentorship. No close by bird rescue/sanctuary.

I did not do it for the money. Cockatiels are not exactly rare and hard to find. I wanted to have the experience of seeing a true miracle of life.

I learned early on that this forum is not the place to ask questions about breeding birds. I ended up going to another forum for answers to my questions. The attitude I got asking questions here was that if you don't have a degree in animal husbandry and 20+ years of experience you should not try it.

Did everything go perfectly? No it did not.

I ended up having two clutches of babies. I kept the first clutch of 3 cockatiels. The second clutch of 4 I sold for a pittance to a pet store that I trusted to give them a good home.

I enjoyed raising my babies and wish I could have more BUT.
It was too hard to basically give them away:smile016:
Plus the parents would pluck the feathers of the babies and I had to put a stop to that.

I think (again this is my opinion) that the people that have real experience like SilverSage for example could be a little more supportive to those who want to have the experience of raising young.
Texsize

PS
Nothing against you SilverSage . You are just the first person I think of that I know breeds birds. You have a great deal of experience to share to those that want to breed birds.

 

[SilverSage]

No offense taken. Actually I'm really glad that this forum opened up a breeding/raising section. My attitude toward a lot of questions has changed as I have realized how much misinformation is out there.

I try to be supportive when people ask questions about breeding, and I actually spend hours upon hours helping newer breeders get started. However I won't sugar coat it. For example if you tell me the parents are injuring the chicks, I'm going to tell you to pull the babies. If you tell me you can't because you have to go to work, I'm going to tell you that you should have had a plan in place for this, and now you need to figure something out really quick before your birds literally rip the faces off of their babies. Why am I so "harsh" sometimes? Because I've seen a baby with his face ripped off because I didn't want to remove him from the nest. My actions led to the violent bloody death of that baby. If you then declare "everyone has to start somewhere!" And stomp off in a huff, I'm not going to cry about your hurt feelings. But what I WILL do is talk you through possibilities and brain storm with you on what could be causing the behavior, and how you can save the babies even if you are working 12 hour shifts. If you are willing to learn, I am willing to support. If you are not willing to do the right thing by the bird, learn, try, spend the money on vet care, etc, then you shouldn't be breeding.


I'm also not willing to replace google. It infuriates me when people come on forums and say that they have a breeding pair refusing to breed, and then we find out something like they haven't even bothered to google how to tell the difference in genders, or what age to pull for hand feeding, never mind the hundreds of hours that SHOULD have gone into research and prep.


All that said, while I get really upset by people who don't care, and don't try to understand, there is also a huge problem. I call it "knowledge hoarding."

Parrot breeders (and maybe other things too but I will only speak on what I know) basically come in two forms right now; experienced and inexperienced. Both groups post "how to" articles on Facebook full of a mix of good advice and TERRIBLE advice. An example of terrible advice: "check the temperature of the hand feeding formula on your wrist to be sure it isn't too hot." That is actually potentially DEADLY advice yet you will find it all over the Internet. So we have a lot of basic "how to" articles out there that really aren't much help. Most experienced breeders have "trade secrets" that they won't tell you about. When you ask for help on a lot of forums you get told "you have to learn by experience" which is TERRIBLE!

I actually had this happen to me recently. I am currently trying to learn to successfully incubate parrot eggs. I asked for advice on a hand raising forum because I am only having a 60% hatch rate. That's TERRIBLE. I'm clearly doing something very wrong.

I got told "you just learn by experience." Well no, I'm not willing to accept that and continue putsing around losing nearly half the babies. That's not OK with me. Another member of that group, an Australian breeder named Linda Plumstead reached out to me personally and helped me work through my problem. She has a 100% hatch rate. Im using the wrong incubator, even though I'm using a well known brand. Im using a rocking brooder supposed to be specifically for parrots; apparently it kills half of them. Good to know, right? And tons of breeders out there know that, but most aren't willing to share.

Another fantastic example of sharing is Susanne Russo who has compiled her decades of knowledge of cockatiel breeding and shared it online; she is AMAZING!

These are the exceptions to the rule, and they are my inspiration. No one has time to be Google for you, but I'm very happy to help when you have a problem that you are willing to solve and isn't readily addressed online. So I try to be supportive, and I really hope that shows in my posts to other breeders. I'm not here to mollycoddle or baby, but I will share my knowledge with anyone who wants it.

I'm a firm believer that the right place for parrots to be produced is in small home aviators, but NOT by people who aren't willing to learn and sacrifice for their babies.


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[SilverSage]

And I should mention that when I say "you" I really just mean anyone, I'm not directing it at anyone specifically


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[texsize]

I think Owlet is mostly referring to the recent uptick in um shall we say basic questions about breeding. Like

"I put my male and female ______ in a cage together with a nest box and I haven't got any eggs yet"

I think these kind of questions show a basic lack of understanding.

SilverSage I understand the YOU refer to is not ME in particular.
But I did indeed have to pull my babies out when the parents started plucking feathers. I wish I could have hand feed them at that point (about 2 weeks old as I recall) But my OWA was badly sick and ended up dying and I had just bought the CAG that had been plucking. My hands were very full.
What we did was "supervised feeding"
We would put the babies in with the parents and let them feed them. As soon as the feeding turned to plucking we would remove them.
I have to go.
Appreciate your understanding.
texsize

 

[SilverSage]

See? You are exactly the kind of person I'm talking about who, when presented with a problem, is willing to figure out a solution.

Also, just a side note, I've found that plucking USUALLY doesn't progress to violence, if you happen to be in that position again


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[Owlet]

Yes I have nothing against novice breeders that are actively willing to learn and adjust to any situation. And as I said in my first post this isn't a problem restricted to avian pet trade, I've seen it everywhere. Mills are a rising problem and it's really upsetting. I understand it's fun to have cute little animals around that you can show off to your friends but if you end up leaving them in the cage all day or giving them the most basic food you can find without really knowing what's in it, please adopt out this animals and definitely do not breed it.

In my opinion if you're breeding for money, don't breed. You should love and care for the species and want to see them grow and be happy and healthy. Shouldn't see them as a pretty penny.

Sorry my original post was a little jumbled. Rough day and I was having a hard time getting my thoughts in order. I might try to re-write it to make it more understandable.

 

[itzjbean]

I think I know what you are saying and I agree with it up to a point.
Putting a male and female _______ together and a let's see what happens attitude is irresponsible. I don't think anyone would disagree.

But speaking for myself.
I did as much reading and research as I could about breeding cockatiels. There was no breeders I could speak to directly and no possibility of mentorship. No close by bird rescue/sanctuary.

I did not do it for the money. Cockatiels are not exactly rare and hard to find. I wanted to have the experience of seeing a true miracle of life.

I learned early on that this forum is not the place to ask questions about breeding birds. I ended up going to another forum for answers to my questions. The attitude I got asking questions here was that if you don't have a degree in animal husbandry and 20+ years of experience you should not try it.

Did everything go perfectly? No it did not.

I ended up having two clutches of babies. I kept the first clutch of 3 cockatiels. The second clutch of 4 I sold for a pittance to a pet store that I trusted to give them a good home.

I enjoyed raising my babies and wish I could have more BUT.
It was too hard to basically give them away:smile016:
Plus the parents would pluck the feathers of the babies and I had to put a stop to that.

I think (again this is my opinion) that the people that have real experience like SilverSage for example could be a little more supportive to those who want to have the experience of raising young.
Texsize

PS
Nothing against you SilverSage . You are just the first person I think of that I know breeds birds. You have a great deal of experience to share to those that want to breed birds.

I totally agree with this!! My experiences sound very similar to yours. I acquired a proven pair of cockatiels over a year ago after not having birds for 10 years and let them have babies in the Spring 2016, my first clutch ever. I didn't do it to make money, but like you, wanted to experience the miracle of life for myself. I also did not have access to a mentor, bird rescue, etc, all were very far away from me. I learned as much as I could, but there are just some things you can't learn until it happens. Like when the mother of the babies started plucking the last born baby, the runt, and no matter how many times I tried to stop her from doing it, she wouldn't stop. I eventually had to take him out and wean him out on formula, good thing I already knew how to handfeed, but SO many novice breeders do NOT know how, and I could've ended up losing him that way. Or how about when I took the babies out for flying practice, and one flew into a window and died. Broke my heart, totally my fault. But I leanred.

I also agree that sometimes it seems like if you don't have 20+ years experience owning and breeding birds, then you'll end up getting bashed and told you shouldn't attempt it. I've found this to be true in many other forums as well, as I also belong to a Doberman Pinscher forum. If your dog is not a show champion or has champion bloodlines and you post about the intent to breed, you better be ready for the retaliation. Holy cow.

 

[texsize]

itzjbean, I Think breeding birds for the first time is a lot like having your first child.

You can read about it. Take classes. Talk to others who have children.

No matter how ready you think you are, you find out how inadequate your preparations were. How much more time it takes than you thought it would. How it changes your life (in good ways and in bad).

Owlet, I did not intend to derail your OP. But you brought to light things I had been thinking about also.
take care.
texsize

 

[Owlet]

It's all good, I don't think you derailed it. I just really felt like it was topic that needed to be discussed since the avian pet trade is among the worst pet trades currently from what I've experienced. I've seen countless articles of hundreds of bird being pulled from hoarding / mill situations and it breaks my heart the condition these birds are in the time they're pulled. Then there's the people trying to sneak birds in waterbottles through airport security. It's just really upsetting.

 

[SilverSage]

It is EXTREMELY upsetting! And I'm personally a big believer that more open dialogue about problems is always a good thing


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[itzjbean]

I will say though, back to the original topic, it is very concerning/alarming the amount of new people coming here and asking very basic breeding questions, like what to feed an unweaned baby that they have already... how to stop parents from having more babies in the nest box in their cage ... like really?! It is frustrating to see the lack of research done by the people like this.

Some people don't appear to have common sense. Something required fro this sort of thing....

 

[EllenD]

As an experienced bird breeder I'll say that I am personally shocked at the number of people that come on here because they already have a clutch of newly hatched chicks, are having problems that require them to pull the chicks and hand-raise/hand-feed them, and they don't even know that they cannot just throw the babies into a shoe box with a blanket. They already have a clutch of chicks newly hatched and forget about having purchased a brooder, they haven't even purchased formula, pipettes, a thermometer, etc. let alone knowing a single thing about hand-feeding the chicks. They don't even know how to mix the formula that they haven't purchased yet! These are the people that I get very, very upset with. That being said, I'm more than willing to sit here for hours and give them step-by-step instructions because I want to help the babies. But my god, how can people purposely breed birds and do absolutely 0 preparations for the chicks?

Then there are the people that are desperately trying to get their birds to breed, they post their question about "how to make their birds breed" in multiple forums because they can't wait for an answer, and you just know that they are only breeding to make money. There was someone a month or so ago that kept posting in every forum about getting their African Grays to breed. Every forum had the same post "how long will it take for my African Grays to breed". Or the person that bought eggs online and an incubator that they had no idea how to work, and their eggs had been in the incubator for like 80 days and hadn't hatched. They wanted someone to give them instructions on using the incubator correctly after already having their eggs in the incubator for 80 days...

It's frustration about ill-prepared people that gets me, and just as SilverSage said, I refuse to pull any punches when answering these people. Sugar coating answers will not teach them anything and they'll just be back asking the same questions in a month or two because they're trying to breed again since it didn't work the first time, and again they've done no preparation or research at all. "Why won't my birds breed? I've been asking for months, I've done everything you told me to do!!"

Then you find out that they confirmed they had a male and a female because one is quieter than the other one...Uhg.

I'll get off my soapbox, but it is definitely a problem. Not so much that people want to start breeding birds, yes they do have to start somewhere, I agree. The problem is that their idea of "starting" is simply throwing a male and a female together and hoping everything will be perfect.

"Dance like nobody's watching..."

 

[itzjbean]

YES YES YES EllenD. My thoughts exactly. Probably my biggest irk, chicks being hatched and the person having absolutely no knowledge of hand-feeding, no preparations to handfeed or brooder on hand....UGH.

 

[SilverSage]

Exactly. And it doesn't just happen on forums, either. It happens to me in real life.

The term "breeder" is self applied. I call myself a breeder, and I take comfort in knowing I do everything I can to be the best I can be, not for some prideful reason but because that's how I do right by my birds.

But Suzie Q down the street calls herself a breeder too, and all she has done is thrown two birds together in a cage and hoped they didn't kill each other.

I also deal with requests often from people who want to buy my babies unweaned. The answer is no. No exceptions. But they will whine, beg, etc. once early on I had someone insisting that they were "an experienced hand feeder" and could they send me a video of themselves hand feeding so I would believe them. I was a lot more polite back then and I let them send me a video. It was of them "hand feeding" as in feeding out of their hand, millet to an adult bird. They didn't even know "hand feeding" included formula.

We cannot be google.


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[GaleriaGila]

I'm too squeamish/chicken to try breeding, plus the Rickeybird won't allow any more birds here, BUTTTTTTTTTT...
May I please just say that this thread is exacty the kind of open-minded, genuine, community-based interaction that makes me love this place!!!!!!!!!!!!?????

 

[EllenD]

Exactly. And it doesn't just happen on forums, either. It happens to me in real life.

The term "breeder" is self applied. I call myself a breeder, and I take comfort in knowing I do everything I can to be the best I can be, not for some prideful reason but because that's how I do right by my birds.

But Suzie Q down the street calls herself a breeder too, and all she has done is thrown two birds together in a cage and hoped they didn't kill each other.

I also deal with requests often from people who want to buy my babies unweaned. The answer is no. No exceptions. But they will whine, beg, etc. once early on I had someone insisting that they were "an experienced hand feeder" and could they send me a video of themselves hand feeding so I would believe them. I was a lot more polite back then and I let them send me a video. It was of them "hand feeding" as in feeding out of their hand, millet to an adult bird. They didn't even know "hand feeding" included formula.

We cannot be google.


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Yes! What is with the influx of new members coming on here because they have purchased an unweaned baby, sometimes the bird is only 3-4 weeks old! And the breeder has not shown them anything! They are simply handed the unweaned bird, a baggie of formula powder, and some pipettes, and told "Thanks, good luck!" Then they get home with this baby bird that hardly has pin feathers and go "Well, what do I do know?"

I obviously understand the concept of selling unweaned baby birds from the breeder's advantage (I never once even thought about doing this, though I don't remember ever being asked by anyone). I do not however understand what the buyers are thinking! Most of these people have never owned a pet bird before, let alone hand-fed an unweaned, very young baby! Some of these birds are so young that they still require an artificial heat source! I can't imagine just nonchalantly saying to myself "Wow, if I buy a younger baby and hand feed it formula for a few weeks I'll save $100... Awesome! I'll take it!", and not even asking them to show me how to do it! WTH?

Ironically a friend of mine from college who lives in central New Jersey texted me last month and asked me to check out the website of a bird shop near her home. She wanted to see what I thought of the shop in general, and also wanted me to look at the baby pionus they had, because she was considering buying it. She had visited the bird a few times and loved it. So I got on the website for this shop and the first thing I realize is that they breed their own birds and that they must breed between 20-30 different species of birds at one time. I've never seen a breeder or a shop that breeds their own birds offer so many different birds. It looked like a large, well-stocked, clean shop, and the photos of their breeders and the breeding rooms, the nursery rooms, etc. looked very clean and well maintained, and they had many photos showing their workers hand-feeding babies, so I thought it was a legit place. Then I went to the "Available Birds" page and saw that each species of babies had two prices, Weaned and Unweaned. In the "Unweaned" column under the price (which was at least $150 less than the "Weaned" price, if not less) it then listed how many babies they had, how many weeks old they were, and how many feedings per day they were currently on. I couldn't believe that a large, established bird shop would do this. They must lose quite a bit of money on babies that are brought back for any number of reasons that you can all imagine. I looked but could not find their health guarantee or policies regarding Unweaned birds.

I just had no idea until recently how popular both buying and selling unweaned baby birds has become.

"Dance like nobody's watching..."

 

[Owlet]

Why do breeders sell un-weaned chicks? I don't entirely understand why they can't wait the extra few weeks until the baby is weaned. I've seen it happen in other communities too such as the rat forums I mentioned previously, I just don't understand why.

 

[SilverSage]

They do it because they are selfish. By passing off the baby early they pass of the time, money, and risk involved. Keep in mind some birds like Macaw's can take 6-12 months to wean properly.


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[SilverSage]

Buyers do it because if the INFURIATING LIES that breeders sell such as
-it will bond better (it won't)
-it is easy (it isn't)
-you will save money. (Lol even if everything goes right you never do).


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