A Few Good Birds - Pet Peeves
As a bird owner who has been breeding for nine years now, I have repeatedly come across situations that leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Please do not ask me to sell you one of my birds if you fall into any of the following categories:
1. Buying a Bird that's "in style". You bought a Conure for your kids after seeing the movie Paulie even though you know nothing about Conures. The poor bird was probably just starting to get used to his new home and pet humans when you dumped him off at a bird rescue because you figured out that birds are messy, high maintenance, and Conures in particular are very loud birds. I'm already cringing about the movie that's coming out featuring a Cockatoo.
2. People afflicted with the bird bug. When I get emails from people saying that they have 11 birds, but have room for one more, it makes my blood boil. If you only have two shoulders, and most people do, you only have room for two birds. If your bird is African in origin, you only have room for one bird. The bird wants 100% of your attention. It doesn't want to share you with another bird. (Caiques being the one exception to this. They'll play with anyone) You can make all the rationalizations that you want. Birds are smart enough to know that are sharing your attention with the other birds. Unless nature would have grouped them together naturally in the wild, they probably don't appreciate the competition.
3. People who waste my time. I try to gear my site toward research to help people make educated choices about adding a certain bird to their family. I am all too happy to answer a question or two with a quick phone call. However I can't count how many times in the past year that I have been stuck on the phone for over an hour while the person on the other end gives me the life story of every pet they've ever owned. They have chat rooms and therapists for people who need attention that badly.
4. People who impulse buy or do not do their research before buying a bird. Besides being loving, funny, entertaining, and great company, birds are messy, food throwing, pooping, newspaper tearing, remote control eating, wood chewing slobs. Learn everything about the bird you are considering for your sake as well as the bird's. Especially in a chain store such as a Petsmart or Petco where profit is the only purpose for selling birds, there's a good chance that the salesperson will not mention that Amazons are not good for families or Cockatoos are loud and unsuitable for apartment dwellers. Put the bird down, take a day or two and think about whether you really have the time, space, money and lifestyle to give a bird a good home.
5. People who "rescue" birds from that horrible bird store. We all know of the story of the poor, mistreated, lonely bird in the smelly pet store. Guess what. If you buy it, there will be another poor, mistreated bird in its place within the week. The only way to discourage the wrong crowd from selling birds is to not buy birds from them. If they are only out to make a buck, hit them in the pocket.