Petco parakeet problems

[ConureLady]

A few of my clients have brought parakeets to me that were in good condition and die a few days later. I disease test all birds I work with and never found any problems. One woman had a beautiful parakeet die at twelve weeks of age, she took it back and got a new one from a new shipment that died after a week. Another woman lost five parakeets after a week. I collected environmental swabs, blood samples, throat swabs etc and nothing harmful to be found!
Petco refuses to do a necropsy and claimed to have a vet.

Has anybody else had an experience like this? Im so frustrated by it. Petco doesn't care about their precious lives cut short.

Maybe there is a petition I could start? To force Petco to disease test and do necropsies on deceased companions from Petco?

I think I'm going to purchase lineolated parakeets to breed for a low price.. I really want my area to have healthy parakeets available to loving homes.

 

[DannyA93]

I just bought a budgie from petco about a month ago and he's perfectly healthy still? I would still sign that petition though when I was yonger I got a budgie and it died after 8 days. I remember because the warranty was 7 days

 

[MonicaMc]

Never had that issue with Petco budgies.... but I did buy a budgie from Petsmart and she died less than 24 hours laters... needless to say, I got my money back and got a budgie from Petco and she lived for several years!

 

[HarleyRider]

I've bought 5 parakeets from Petsmart and they're all healthy and chirping away as I type .

 

[Featheredsamurai]

I used to work at Petsmart and the budgies were always pretty good, if only scared. A few birds had strained wings and we kept them in the quite room to let them heal and settle in.

The only two parakeets I remember dieing were both bought by the same person, a young girl and her mother. I refused to sell them another and no other birds died.

 

[Birdlover11]

I HATE PETCO ! Even though I bought Pepsi and sprite thier, they have wrong info, sick animals, and they say they have a " in store vet " . They have it, for dogs and cats. They know nothing about animals besides basic animals like dog and cats

 

[Stormiii]

I think it all depends at which Petco/PetSmart you get them from. Some pet stores may be good in one thing and bad in the other, and it may be vice versa for the same store brand! For example, the place I bought my budgies, Coby and Sunny, horribly mistreats their puppies, but Coby and Sunny are very healthy and happy (well, Sunny for the most part anyway, she's a bit anxious.) But I had a friend with a bad experience with a PetSmart budgie.

 

[Nerine]

In the past, I've bought 2 budgies and a pair of zebra finches from Petsmart; they were all healthy and happy

 

[LordTriggs]

I think with birds from places like petco there's inherently more risk just due to the place being a pure business. Meaning that they have to pump out larger numbers of birds from breeders spending less time caring initially to help and of course using a vet or paying for the top of the line food is expensive so they just get the rubbish for the longest time. I also think the stress and upset of being moved around is a large part of it which puts a lot of strain on a baby so you probably find that the ones that are healthy and happy will be hardier than those that just can't cope with all of it

 

[crimson.snwbnny]

One of my parakeets are from petco. The other I got from a local mom pop. Got them both in april.

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[clark_conure]

Petco and petsmart stores buy from the same independent breeders. They don't breed the birds themselves, they just make a deal with a breeder and upsell the bird in a comercial market. There isn't some underground petco breeding farm they buy and sell locally with whatever they can get. If there is a problem it is most likely with the breeder.

The pet stores make most their margins on food, toys, beds, cages, etc. They don't have the turnaround on animals to make a profit and I'm pretty sure they are not in the selling sick animals business. They want you pet happy and healthy so you buy more stuff.

I would contact that particular store and tell them that breeder is selling sick animals, I'm almost positive they will cut ties and maybe send in a vet to check them out.

To reiterate I know some people hate chain stores...but the 400 bucks you spent on a conure they only got a small part of that, they make the money on the cages, the food, the toys etc. If they are selling a sick bird they will listen, if not take it up to an area manger.

And no I don't work for a pet store I'm an electrical engineer.

 

[LordTriggs]

Petco and petsmart stores buy from the same independent breeders. They don't breed the birds themselves, they just make a deal with a breeder and upsell the bird in a comercial market. There isn't some underground petco breeding farm they buy and sell locally with whatever they can get. If there is a problem it is most likely with the breeder.

The pet stores make most their margins on food, toys, beds, cages, etc. They don't have the turnaround on animals to make a profit and I'm pretty sure they are not in the selling sick animals business. They want you pet happy and healthy so you buy more stuff.

I would contact that particular store and tell them that breeder is selling sick animals, I'm almost positive they will cut ties and maybe send in a vet to check them out.

To reiterate I know some people hate chain stores...but the 400 bucks you spent on a conure they only got a small part of that, they make the money on the cages, the food, the toys etc. If they are selling a sick bird they will listen, if not take it up to an area manger.

And no I don't work for a pet store I'm an electrical engineer.

very good point about the profit margin. The big eye catching stuff makes no profit at all, it's the extra bits they make money on. Toys, food ETC That's why they always push that stuff. It's why they wont shell out for a necropsy. They'd be losing money hand over fist even if the majority of their birds were fine. All you can really do is inform the store that a lot of their birds die very quickly and ask if they can investigate the breeder. But honestly nothing will come of it. Retail workers just aren't paid enough to care about doing extra stuff like that. All you can hope for is the word gets spread about that particular store and people stop buying birds from them

 

[clark_conure]

I disagree, if you talk to a manger he will fear local media etc. try to keep it quiet let them fix their internal problems, it may not be their fault and they weren't aware...

But if they ignore you.....unleash all holy hell on "that" particular store. Because the manger isn't doing his job and needs fired.

 

[LordTriggs]

you gotta be careful with "blasting" a place. It very easily becomes legal as it does affect business so Petco as a company could sue and being a company they have money for top lawyers so you would get buried in court