petsmart greencheek

[pepper2015]

i went to petsmart last night to find pepper some goodies and noticed they had a new greencheek in.poor little fella is covered in stress bars and he has destroyed about 2/3 of his tailfeathers.according to his band he was hatched in 2012.he seemed SO excited when i walked up.he even put his little foot up and waved his toes.i stayed and interacted with him for awhile because he seemed so starved for attention.he called for me until i left the store and it just broke my heart.i could hear him call for me until i left the store.i would have given anything to be able to afford the 349 asking price but i was spending my last 30 to my name getting a suprise for pepper.are any of yall in the chattanooga area?that little fella needs out of there so bad to have a chance to be happy.he was such a little clown.3 years of being ignored or poked at thru the glass is too long already

 

[SilverSage]

Oh man that story makes me want to run get him right now distance doesnt allow me to

 

[pepper2015]

i know.it is heartbreaking.i actually cried in the car.i have been racking my brain trying to figure out a way to get him out of there since i left the store.this was a shot in the dark but just maybe someone who can afford it and lives close enough will see it.i sure hope so!

 

[Christinenc2000]

Sad but I order everything except fresh food for BB on line because of this. I see the same thing at the Petsmart and Petco stores here.

 

[Mallory]

I purchased Eva (GCC) from Petco and even though she was from a store it sure felt like we rescued her! She had been there for around 6 months and none of the employees knew how to work with her. Worse, one of the employees who considers herself a "bird expert" with no real idea of how to tame parrots worked with her and took her from unsocialized to completely phobic of hands. She nearly died when she first got to the store because she was not weaned properly and she barely started eating before she starved - these are the things only the new "undertrained" employees will let slip, others know better than to talk about health problems with the animals. In every Petco there is a small "hospital room" in back and not all of them are places you want to see. I used to work at that store back when it was full of animal lovers, we all got fired in a wave because the new manager felt loving animals was a "conflict of interest" that effected profits. No joke. Now all the employees are college kids with no idea how to do anything with the animals! I fell in love watching her roll on her back in play...and we were looking for a smaller parrot, plus all of the rescues were too much of a road trip for us so we ended up taking her. The employee at the time was terrified of her and would not touch her so he made me take her out and put her in her carrier. $400 poorer and 3 months later she is the most amazing bird. She went to work with me yesterday and rode around on my shoulder, when I had to set her down she explored everything or hung out on the dishwashing rack window watching.

But this is what I really want to say. I've worked in rescue (other species) and I've worked in a pet store. You buying a GCC from a big box store tells that store there is local interest and they will likely fill the empty cage with another conure as soon as possible. It also supports the warehouse breeding of parrots, supports the big pet stores carrying and potentially neglecting animals like this. I know, I know, you can't save all animals but you can make a difference to one or a few. Whenever possible, why not make that difference for animals in rescues? Then your money goes to helping a rescue run and helping the birds you could not save, instead of supporting the large scale pet trade. Just food for thought, as many of us animal lovers have "rescued" sad cases from pet stores.

 

[Puck]

I agree with you, Mallory. My best friend got the pet store she worked at shut down because they were getting pure bred puppies from Puppy mills. Pet stores are extremely questionable places and buying animals from them will just encourage them to get more. On the other hand, they are going to get more anyway once this one wastes away, so really it's a lose-lose situation. Hopefully someone will be able to take in this little guy. There is a new GCC at my Petsmart, too, and he looks a mess as well. I don't ask to see the birds because I know if I handle them then I will want them, and I have no interest in spending an obscene amount of money at a pet store when I could get a hand raised baby from a breeder for a good $200 less. Even the bird store in Dallas that breeds their own birds just seems a questionable place to me, not the least of which because they board birds in the same air space that they keep their babies, exposing them to constantly rotating disease. And, on top of that, they charge at least $200 more than a normal breeder! Seriously, their regular sun conures are $600. On the rare occasion I go to pet stores, I just convince myself that they will find homes. Sadly, you can't save them all. I really do wish that the stores would stick to budgies as their largest hook bill, though. I know several people who aren't "bird people" but keep a pair of budgies and manage to give them relatively happy lives since they are smaller. People just don't understand that getting a parrot is up there in responsibility to getting a dog. Or possibly a child, lol!

 

[MangoandKiwi]

That's so sad Hatched in 2012? poor thing...
I agree with Mallory and Puck.

 

[Aquila]

I used to work for one of those places and yeah, most of us did our best for our conures, most of us, including myself would let the conure out on us while we cleaned the other cages and fed the birds, tried to play with them as much as possible but due to time constraints and management pressure we had to be out as fast as possible and not spend much time with them, it's really sad.

 

[MyFlock]

The band says 2012 and it's still sitting at the store? That's outrageous! I would get him out of there if you can. I know the Petcos here usually send them back to the breeder if they are nearing a year old and haven't been purchased yet.

 

[pepper2015]

my cousin is manager at their rival petco in california.she gave me some hints on how to approach them and what to say to see if i can get them to discount him.i wasnt really looking to get another right now because i just got pepper a month ago but this little guy deserves a shot at being happy.like some others have said they will replace him either way and this guy has just had enough of it from the looks of him.we cant save them all but this one is getting out of there for sure.i will go in there tonight and take a pic of him and post here.

 

[SilverSage]

Unfortunately I know the evil that buying from big box stores can promote. However occasionally I will break my own rules, especially in a case like this because it truly sounds like that bird was brought back in to the store and given to them rather than purchased as a baby.

Here is an article I wrote on this very issue...

How to Save Unwanted Parrots ? Silver Sage Aviaries

 

[MyFlock]

Unfortunately I know the evil that buying from big box stores can promote. However occasionally I will break my own rules, especially in a case like this because it truly sounds like that bird was brought back in to the store and given to them rather than purchased as a baby.

Here is an article I wrote on this very issue...

How to Save Unwanted Parrots ? Silver Sage Aviaries

Never even thought of that! Can you own a Petsmart bird for a couple years and then return it?

 

[SilverSage]

A lot of times people just dump their birds with pet stores, or possibly they could have dumped him with a breeder that supplies the store. A bird that old and that well socialized that it is begging to be held almost certainly hasn't been in the store the whole time

 

[pepper2015]

great article silversage.i tried to get his story from the employees last night but all they said was the manager wasnt in and advised me to call or come in during the day to speak with her.what you said makes perfect sense about how he might have came to be there...
i tried to get some good pictures to show his stress bars and feather damage but he was really frightened of the camera so i put it away so he didnt freak out.another thing i did notice when he was frantically flapping to get away from the camera was under his wings his flight feathers were super short.is that a normal clipping to have maybe an inch and a half of just quill left?peppers were a partial clip and the feather is still on the quil lookks nothing like what is going on under his wings and one side looked even more bald.i wish i would have been able to get a pic of it.anyway here is the only pic i took of him.unfortunatly it shows none of the stress bars or plucked tail feathers.as soon as i get him home i will see if he will tolerate a sneaky shot or two.i hope to have him by sunday.

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[OOwl]

He's adorable. So, am I reading right that you decided to adopt him? I do hope so. Sounds like he has a really good temperament. That's one benefit of acquiring an adult parrot; you better know what you're getting personality wise.

Is that an open band on his leg, though? That's odd. I didn't really think breeders did that anymore. I wonder where PS obtains their GCCs?

Good luck! Following this boy's story.

 

[SilverSage]

Many breeders still use open bands esp when selling birds they didnt actually produce.

 

[OOwl]

Wow, I didn't know that. Most of the breeders I'm familiar with use close bands. Only time I've seen open bands was as an additional ID for finches or other song birds, further identifying them by gender, family, mutation, or some other trait the breeder could visually see in a flight without having to capture and read/cross-reference the band. Open bands are kind of scary on a parrot of any size, much less safe than a closed band.

So – and I'm ignorant here – PS buys its babies from breeders and then bands them with open bands? The original breeder doesn't band? I'll have to pay attention to the GCCs and cockatiels at my local stores to see what they're wearing.

Sorry for the deviation from the original post. I was just curious about this.

 

[SilverSage]

Most big box chain stores have established contracts with large breeders and buy only from them. However that doesn't mean the breeder produced the birds. Unfortunately there are a lot of unscrupulous people involved in the pet trade. I believe all birds sold to places like PS and PC have to be banded, even budgies and finches. Thus, the breeder who supplies the store likely open bands any birds they don't produce. or perhaps they are just lazy and prefer to do it that way. Or maybe something came up during the very short window of opportunity to band the bird with a closed band, and for some reason the breeder was unable to apply a closed band; that has happened to me. There any many possibilities.

 

[Flboy]

I hope you will ask for a discount, they should easily knock off $50. And I agree, you are much better off with an older fid!

 

[Minimaker]

The sale of birds in pet stores is as old as time and will never stop. It just won't. As long as there are people who walk into these stores who impulse buy-there will always be birds in those cages. They don't know the nasty truth, and probably wouldn't want to know. They want what they want when they want it and the demand will always be there. It's never gonna change. In a perfect world maybe, but it's never going to be perfect as long as people aren't perfect.

I'm of the opinion that if the bird already exists and is miserable or uncared for-it needs a good home just the same as any other bird. My not buying that one bird is not going to change the nature of man or the world. But it will change the world for that one bird.

My Tazzy was eight years old, the pet store owner hated him. I stress hated, and everything that went along with that in treatment and care. I paid $200 for him. Now I can say with one hundred percent certainly that I would have paid hundreds more for this bird-just to see him happy and loved. I wouldn't sell him for a thousand dollars. Wouldn't even consider it.