Pet shop.

[HannahandSunny]

We had an appointment in a town we hadn’t been to before, While driving through I noticed a big ‘BIRD, FISH AND PET’ shop. Decided we’d take a look on our way back out later in the day.
I’m never impressed with pet shops so I don’t know why I do it to myself.. I never learn lol! As soon as we walked in I noticed the Stressed looking guinea pigs who had no appropriate food.. but behind them was a large bird aviary with 2 different parrots in it, they looked okay. One was quite friendly. You could hear the bird area the moment we walked into the shop, so we walked towards the bird area, There was a huge Black beautiful cockatoo in a cage, he looked quite stressed to me. And extremely bored. He was housed next to 2 other parrots who didn’t look very happy with their neighbour. Then We entered the actual bird room. A typical pet shop set up with the small temporary cages with a couple of perches in them. But so so so many birds and cages. It was awful. All chatting away, some huddled by themselves looking depressed and others clearly quite stressed. So many different types and breeds. They had almost had everything..except a Sunny. There was one bird who caught my eye the most, An upset but cute little Sun concure. He was on his own and looked stressed to me. His little wings kept flapping out a bit..like when Sunny would do when saying hello to me.. but more consistent and fast like it was a little nervous habit he’d picked up. Not a cute gesture. I could be wrong. He so desperately wanted out, out of that hell hole. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, I’m sure he was looking at me too. I felt very sad for him. The not very knowledgeable staff member said he looked like he was about 4 years old, He was $400. I didn’t go to buy a bird and can’t afford that.
I left feeling very sad for him and all the other birds, there was 2 lovebirds below him grabbing onto the side of the cage with their bellies exposed to us, they were grooming each other. I could tell they’d picked out a lot of there feathers.

It’s so lovely that everyone on here cares and loves their Parrots as part of the family and spoil them rotten. If only they could all go to amazing homes. I worry so much about the future of all these birds, more than likely going to be stuck in a small cage all of there short life.

 

[Scott]

Such a sad commentary, Hannah. With some exceptions, pet shops are dismal and heartbreaking holding patterns for hapless critters. Too small a percentage land superb homes, like you would provide.

I wish we could collectively same them all, and in time you'll find the right circumstances to adopt a parrot.

 

[AmyMyBlueFront]

Unfortunately Hannah sweety it seems as if pet shops are only in it for the $$$$ . Even the place Amy and I go to..too many times we have seen the same thing. At one visit we saw a small cage with two BB's in it..with one perch and one toy. One BB had his head tucked into his shoulder while the other was frantically following Amy and I around their house. I could tell he wanted the heck out and to come home with us. The sign said $249 for both teils and cage,when a single teil costs that much. When I asked why so cheap the guy said " they have been here too long and we just want them gone".
I cried on the way home!



Jim

 

[HannahandSunny]

Yes Pet shops sadly are only in it for the money, supply and demand. And finding the cheapest possible stock.. any breeders will do. Sad existence for these breeding animals and their offspring.
But of course they aren’t all bad, occasionally you come across a kind pet shop. And there are lots of lovely humans out there to give them good homes.
When I do come to get a parrot, I’d love to get a suitable rescue bird. however If the Sun Concure was the same amount of money I had in my purse I fear I would have taken him home!

 

[LaManuka]

I often remind Lilly Pilly what a lucky little birdie she is. I haven’t written anything before about the breeder i got her from, but the conditions in his “aviaries” (and I use that term in it’s loosest possible sense!) were so shocking that I almost walked away in disgust. I don’t know how many birds this guy had but it was way too many, and all jammed into tiny, rusty cages covered in filth that had clearly not been cleaned in years. The place was alive with flies and cockroaches, and my God, the smell! Every fibre of my being just wanted to get the he!! out of there!

And then he brought my little Lilly out to me, and although I was certain she must be diseased from those conditions I couldn’t leave her behind. She was what he called a “spare” hen and I feared what her fate might be if i didn’t take her. We would have taken all of them if we could have. We took Lilly to the vet where we were surprised to learn she is completely healthy - don’t ask me how!

The breeder said apparently they’d been “inspected” several times by various government agencies and, incredibly, allowed to continue operating! Either the inspectors were blind or the only thing they were concerned about was that the breeder had paid his license fees! I seriously considered reporting him myself but I’ve noticed lately that the business name has disappeared so he may have been closed down. If so it concerns me what happened to all those poor birds but I fear it would be too upsetting to know...

There are of course lots of wonderful aviculturalists out there but my goodness the bad ones can be really really awful!

 

[HannahandSunny]

I often remind Lilly Pilly what a lucky little birdie she is. I haven’t written anything before about the breeder i got her from, but the conditions in his “aviaries” (and I use that term in it’s loosest possible sense!) were so shocking that I almost walked away in disgust. I don’t know how many birds this guy had but it was way too many, and all jammed into tiny, rusty cages covered in filth that had clearly not been cleaned in years. The place was alive with flies and cockroaches, and my God, the smell! Every fibre of my being just wanted to get the he!! out of there!

And then he brought my little Lilly out to me, and although I was certain she must be diseased from those conditions I couldn’t leave her behind. She was what he called a “spare” hen and I feared what her fate might be if i didn’t take her. We would have taken all of them if we could have. We took Lilly to the vet where we were surprised to learn she is completely healthy - don’t ask me how!

The breeder said apparently they’d been “inspected” several times by various government agencies and, incredibly, allowed to continue operating! Either the inspectors were blind or the only thing they were concerned about was that the breeder had paid his license fees! I seriously considered reporting him myself but I’ve noticed lately that the business name has disappeared so he may have been closed down. If so it concerns me what happened to all those poor birds but I fear it would be too upsetting to know...

There are of course lots of wonderful aviculturalists out there but my goodness the bad ones can be really really awful!

Gosh what a hell hole, so sad for all those birds. Lily is vey lucky indeed.
It reminds me of a place I got 2 of my Guinea pigs from, there was about 30-40 g’pigs at the bottom of an outside hexagon bird aviary along with lots of finches.
All the pigs where riddled with mites, starving, in-breeding and fighting. The floor was dirt and all they were fed was carrots. I cried the when I got in the car.

 

[LaManuka]

Seriously Hannah I don’t know how these people live with themselves!

We can only hope they’ll pay the price in their next lives.

 

[Noahs_Birds]

I've seen some absolute rotten stuff while being an Aviculturalist myself
There is a pub called the 'Meringandan Pub' and they have an aviary which is ok now, but it used to be terrible with one time I walked to the aviary with a dead princess parrot on the floor, and seeing ringneck doves being fed a large parrot mix (that should not ever be fed to doves), and worst of all there were Bantam chickens running around the floor, which would be spreading all sorts of diseases
I ended up getting given a number of birds from a bloke who's kids were not caring after the birds anymore so it was left up to the bloke to care for them. The aviary, 12 Zebra finches and 7 or 8 Bourkes parrots and a pair of green cheeked conures were given to myself. The Bourkes parrot and zebra finch aviary was smelly because of the amount of seed and mice in the aviary, but fortunately the birds were fine. I was given the bourkes parrot and zebra finch aviary which I cleaned thoroughly and now that house my original pair of conures. The other pair of conures I got given from this bloke I wormed them, Coccidian treated and mite and lice treated them (although they really didn't need it), and I rehomed them to a good mate of mine. All the zebbies and all the bourkes parrots apart from one pair of bourkes all went under the same treatment and all were rehomed as well. The worst thing I found at his place was that the aviary had an avocado tree growing around it.
There is a pet store in Toowoomba called 'Pets Galore', which used to be the definition of hell for birds. All birds were plucked, the bird room disgusting smelling and looking, and generally all the birds looked awful. A couple times it was almost closed down until it came under new management and it is much better, but I would still not buy birds from there.
I for one as an aviculturalist take great pride in the cleanliness of my aviarys and the health of my birds, to this day I have never had a plucked bird, I have never missed cleaning days, and I have never been commented that my setup has anything wrong with it. I clean my aviary's twice a week and generally all my birds look very happy because of the care and pride I put into my aviaries, and regularly I get commented on how clean my aviaries are (I had a whole bird club come for an aviary visit and all they kept saying was how clean my aviaries were and how healthy all the birds are) and all my mates keep their aviaries sparkling clean.
Its the people that do not act on sick birds and messy conditions that get bad names
Thanks
Noah Till

 

[HannahandSunny]

I've seen some absolute rotten stuff while being an Aviculturalist myself
There is a pub called the 'Meringandan Pub' and they have an aviary which is ok now, but it used to be terrible with one time I walked to the aviary with a dead princess parrot on the floor, and seeing ringneck doves being fed a large parrot mix (that should not ever be fed to doves), and worst of all there were Bantam chickens running around the floor, which would be spreading all sorts of diseases
I ended up getting given a number of birds from a bloke who's kids were not caring after the birds anymore so it was left up to the bloke to care for them. The aviary, 12 Zebra finches and 7 or 8 Bourkes parrots and a pair of green cheeked conures were given to myself. The Bourkes parrot and zebra finch aviary was smelly because of the amount of seed and mice in the aviary, but fortunately the birds were fine. I was given the bourkes parrot and zebra finch aviary which I cleaned thoroughly and now that house my original pair of conures. The other pair of conures I got given from this bloke I wormed them, Coccidian treated and mite and lice treated them (although they really didn't need it), and I rehomed them to a good mate of mine. All the zebbies and all the bourkes parrots apart from one pair of bourkes all went under the same treatment and all were rehomed as well. The worst thing I found at his place was that the aviary had an avocado tree growing around it.
There is a pet store in Toowoomba called 'Pets Galore', which used to be the definition of hell for birds. All birds were plucked, the bird room disgusting smelling and looking, and generally all the birds looked awful. A couple times it was almost closed down until it came under new management and it is much better, but I would still not buy birds from there.
I for one as an aviculturalist take great pride in the cleanliness of my aviarys and the health of my birds, to this day I have never had a plucked bird, I have never missed cleaning days, and I have never been commented that my setup has anything wrong with it. I clean my aviary's twice a week and generally all my birds look very happy because of the care and pride I put into my aviaries, and regularly I get commented on how clean my aviaries are (I had a whole bird club come for an aviary visit and all they kept saying was how clean my aviaries were and how healthy all the birds are) and all my mates keep their aviaries sparkling clean.
Its the people that do not act on sick birds and messy conditions that get bad names
Thanks
Noah Till

Shocking!! If only all the Birds could be rescued by people like yourself..

Sorry for my ignorance but may I ask what an aviculturalist is?

 

[Noahs_Birds]

Thankyou for the kind words Hannah
An Aviculturalist is a person that captive breeds/ keeps and cares for birds, usually it is referred to people that have large amounts of birds amongst many aviaries/ cages
Some people should not get the privilege of being called an Aviculturalist in my opinion
Thanks
Noah Till

 

[HannahandSunny]

Thankyou for the kind words Hannah
An Aviculturalist is a person that captive breeds/ keeps and cares for birds, usually it is referred to people that have large amounts of birds amongst many aviaries/ cages
Some people should not get the privilege of being called an Aviculturalist in my opinion
Thanks
Noah Till

Well there we go, I learnt something new today!

Thank you

 

[Betrisher]

You think it's bad for birds! You should check out the conditions for rats and mice! Usually, both genders are kept in the same tank/enclosure so all the males mate repeatedly with all the females. Therefore, the females are always pregnant and give birth roughly every three weeks. Of course, the conditions are crowded and the females are stressed, so they feel compelled to eat their young (it's a rodent thing: pregnancy costs the little mothers a great deal in terms of nutrients and the only way of getting enough back to survive is for her to eat her children).

That's how we got into keeping mice in the first place. I saw poor little Angela and Cecilia being constantly mated with by a horde of males. Angela was already heavily pregnant, so I bought her and Cecilia and took them home for a life of luxury. When Angela's babies were born, she was so exhausted caring for them that Cecilia lactated and fed them.

Thankfully, I see few petshops selling mice these days. I believe there are actually moves afoot in NSW to allow petshops only to sell food and supplies, not live animals. If you wanted to buy one, you'd have to go to a registered breeder. Which is good. Only thing is, I don't know how close we are for this to be enacted.

Another thing that upsets me hugely is the sight of Siamese fighting fish being offered for sale in tiny plastic cups containing no more than 100ml of water! I complain loudly whenever I see this (shopkeepers tend to usher me hurriedly out of their shops), but nothing ever gets done about it. I don't know why the RSPCA isn't more active in checking cruelty in petshops.

 

[HannahandSunny]

You think it's bad for birds! You should check out the conditions for rats and mice! Usually, both genders are kept in the same tank/enclosure so all the males mate repeatedly with all the females. Therefore, the females are always pregnant and give birth roughly every three weeks. Of course, the conditions are crowded and the females are stressed, so they feel compelled to eat their young (it's a rodent thing: pregnancy costs the little mothers a great deal in terms of nutrients and the only way of getting enough back to survive is for her to eat her children).

That's how we got into keeping mice in the first place. I saw poor little Angela and Cecilia being constantly mated with by a horde of males. Angela was already heavily pregnant, so I bought her and Cecilia and took them home for a life of luxury. When Angela's babies were born, she was so exhausted caring for them that Cecilia lactated and fed them.

Thankfully, I see few petshops selling mice these days. I believe there are actually moves afoot in NSW to allow petshops only to sell food and supplies, not live animals. If you wanted to buy one, you'd have to go to a registered breeder. Which is good. Only thing is, I don't know how close we are for this to be enacted.

Another thing that upsets me hugely is the sight of Siamese fighting fish being offered for sale in tiny plastic cups containing no more than 100ml of water! I complain loudly whenever I see this (shopkeepers tend to usher me hurriedly out of their shops), but nothing ever gets done about it. I don't know why the RSPCA isn't more active in checking cruelty in petshops.

Couldn’t agree more with you! In fact at this pet shop they had mice in tanks and I could smell them before I even got close, it was obvious they had never been cleaned out and god knows how long the poor things had been in there..
Pet shops never sex guinea pigs correctly either, and always give out the wrong care information. I hate that most pet shops are happy to sell a single pig to a life all on its own. Their such social creatures.

YES!! I feel awful for these poor simase fighters! Just because they prefer a solitary life doesn’t mean the should be kept in tiny, pint sized jars or tanks with no mental stimulation!! It’s barbaric!
I could go on all day about how cruel and barbaric the pet shop trade is.. and sadly yes, the RSPCA are useless..

 

[Betrisher]

A long time ago, my sister and I had an anglo-arab gelding called Tristan. Like most thoroughbred types, he was utterly brilliant at getting himself into dicey situations. One day, he struck out at another horse through a fence and caught his foot in the bottom strand of barbed wire. By the time we knew about this, he'd been lying, bleeding and struggling for about six hours! He had nearly managed to sever his hoof from his fetlock!!!

Three months later and after three thousand dollars' worth of treatment, we had a visit from the RSPCA. Someone had reported us for cruelty! We showed the inspector the wound, the medicines, the dressings and our three-times daily routine of hose-piping the leg and he was satisfied that there was no cruelty going on. Nevertheless, he recommended that ongoing inspections should occur.

During the following three months, we had regular visits from the RSPCA, visiting our already-healing horse. During that three months, my sister and I happened to hear of a mare and foal being kept inhumanely. We went to visit and found an emaciated and pregant mare with her almost-dead yearling foal shut in a yard which contained only dust. Both had colic, presumably from eating the dust. Despite our repeated pleas to the RSPCA, NOBODY ever went to inspect the pair and we eventually found them both dead in the dustbowl that was their yard. We cried and cried all the way home. When we rang the RSPCA to report the deaths and ask why an inspector hadn't made it to see them in THREE BL**DY MONTHS, we were told 'We're not God. We haven't got the manpower to visit every cruelty case'. Yet, they had continued to check up on Tristan about once a fortnight, despite knowing he was in the care of the most expensive horse vet in town.

I HATE the RSPCA! They always have their hand out for cash but still manage to fail so many animals and for no really good reason.

 

[Scott]

Thankyou for the kind words Hannah
An Aviculturalist is a person that captive breeds/ keeps and cares for birds, usually it is referred to people that have large amounts of birds amongst many aviaries/ cages
Some people should not get the privilege of being called an Aviculturalist in my opinion
Thanks
Noah Till

Well done and deep respect for your attention to the critical details, Noah.

I suspect a lot of breeders and shopkeepers are better classified as "hoarders."

 

[dhraiden]

It's an paradox, in some ways. The small local chain MnM came from habituated them to human contact by taking them out often, speaking with them, carrying them about on staff shoulders...which in turn made them more attractive, and so we bought them. And since then, having done the same or similar with every new bird that arrived since we got Mnm in 2014/5 (that's ~9 birds over 5 years now, a 100% rate), it's pleasing to confirm that each new arrival was sold to a presumably loving forever'ish-home within a few months, very unusual for my area of Qns in that most people in NYC are dog/cat ppl, esp from a completely unscientific-shallow sample observed anecdotally from my standpoint. But people come in and those well-adjusted birds must really make an impression, b/c no one is dropping $$$'s on a whim around here. Now I don't like how the siam-fishes are kept, either, it's endemic to the industry apparently...but at least AFA as my local store's birds, they've done excellently. And I'm glad knowing in my travels I found pretty good bird shops (where the birds are out and have plenty of room) everywhere from hereabouts to Freehold to Austin to Madrid..

 

[Noahs_Birds]

Thankyou for the kind words Hannah
An Aviculturalist is a person that captive breeds/ keeps and cares for birds, usually it is referred to people that have large amounts of birds amongst many aviaries/ cages
Some people should not get the privilege of being called an Aviculturalist in my opinion
Thanks
Noah Till

Well done and deep respect for your attention to the critical details, Noah.

I suspect a lot of breeders and shopkeepers are better classified as "hoarders."

Thanks Scott
Hoarders is not a strong enough word for some people, I think 'Grim Reapers' are a much more appropriate name.
My favourite pet store I go to and regularly sell my bred stock to is the Aquabird Pet Center. I love this place, the staff are so friendly and helpful and they take care of all their birds very well. I have very rarely have seen sick birds there, because of the care they provide and if a bird is ill they have a hospital cage up the back to nurse it back to health, instead of the other pet stores just leaving them there in the cage to pass away. In fact, I have only seen 1 dead bird there and it was a very old zebra finch (you could tell by the scaley legs and ring around its eye which is a sign of old age in finches), and that was very early in the morning when I went in there. I bought my original zebra finches, My pair of Yellow sided Green cheeked Conures, a Turqoisine Parrot and my first pair of Gouldians from there and they all are very healthy birds. This Pet shop is so good that they worm and mite and lice treat all there birds almost religiously.
Pets Galore which is the pet store I started talking about earlier on in the thread, I hated that place so much in the early years that myself and other people were making plans of robbing the place and sending all the birds to rehabilitation centers across the state (was a good plan, but the consequences would be high).
Because of the new management it has gone under, I had to reluctantly take some zebra finches there because I had my Javan Munias coming in from all the way from Tasmania (I had tried to sell them to various other places but they had no room for them), so I took them in and the conditions weren't too bad actually but the place did smell a bit funky, but the zebbies should be fine there I thought because of how hardy they are. When I was getting paid for the the manager tried to talk me into selling some more birds to her like my rarer finches, I turned to her and bluntly said "No", took my money and left the store. Thankfully I went into the store the other week and they were all sold.
Some of my good mates who are breeders get dobbed on and get called 'Hoarders', yet their birds are the healthiest and well cared for birds I have ever seen. Just people sometimes getting 'high and mighty' with themselves for no reason, why don't they dob on the people who are actually in the wrong, beats me!
Thanks
Noah Till

 

[TrebleMama]

Wow, that's so sad OP! We did just get our Amazon from a pet store, but our experience was completely different than yours. They specialize in exotic animals and they treat their birds well (we've visited this store on and off for years). They have two separate areas-one for small birds and then one for conures and bigger. You need permission to go in, and are escorted by a clerk. There is also only allowed 4 people, plus clerk, in the area at a time.

When we went in the clerk followed us around to make sure we weren't being disrespectful to the birds, and she gave us information about each one etc. They had several play gyms set up that were occupied, as well as 'play pens' (one had a group of sun conures-holy cow are they loud when they're all together, LOL). Each bird had their own cage from what I could tell and they were appropriately sized, with several toys in each etc. They also kept same sized species together (so conures cages were all together etc). When we narrowed our search down to the Amazon that had caught our eye the clerk would not let us handle him unless we were seriously considering him, (she flat out said this to us). They hand feed their birds as babies and work with a legit vet. They also make their own blend of food that has pellets, seeds and then dried fruit, the birds get fresh veg/fruit etc. All of the birds looked in good shape/happy/busy. They also gave us all our Amazon's cage toys and then Sally Blanchard's Companion Parrot Handbook, to take home with us.

There's only one other bird focused store in our area and we went back and forth about which one to go to, but the other one is a lot more 'dumpy'. The store always seems a bit dirty and overcrowded, birds are loose all over the place (always freaks me out because it's a small store and the outside door is right there!). The store has been crowded when we've gone and multiple people are standing in front of one cage/bird trying to interact with them etc. The one we went to is also locally owned/run but it's always clean with a lot of staff that are interacting with the animals/cleaning/monitoring the customers etc.

We've seen parrots at regular pet stores (pet smart etc), I can't even imagine buying one from that kind of store

 

[18WheelsOfSteel]

It is an unfortunate fact of life, but often shops are all but forced into obtaining/caring for birds in this way, I hardly agree that it is right, but in most places the licensing fees are hardly a reflection of the type of money which can be afforded, and I assure you that politicians couldn't care less about issues such as these no matter what they say, the beauracracy only cares about the cash, long as you pay, and you aren't a significant impediment to re-election, you are fine. These shops are providing likely the only source of income these employees have, they may disagree with the treatment just as much as we do, and frankly many of the corporate executives might too, but if they don't run a profitable company, the employees are out of a job and now they might be the ones starving etc. It's a rotten state of affairs all around, but I would urge those who make a point of trying to treat shop staff/ownership harshly to remember that there is always another side of the story. I personally own a business, and I promise you that the way I would LIKE to be able to run it is a far cry from the reality, sometimes things just are the way they are, and the only one making out well is the government and it's beauracrats.

 

[Noahs_Birds]

A big thing was happening here in Aus in NSW about new laws regarding bird breeders like myself as 'pet stores' (would not have affected me as I am in QLD, but our government was considering it).
Breeders were then going to have to require a TAFE CERT 2 training, a total of 21 written procedures together with an exhaustive list of other registers, directories, training manuals, guarantees, rosters, signage, cage minimum sizes ect...
If it went ahead, it could have ended private bird keeping in NSW, if not Australia if the rest of the country caught on
Thanks
Noah Till