Bird Adoptions on Craigslist

[binobina]

Hi Kevin,
I just want to share the experience I had at Craigslist, trying to rehome my parrots.

As I posted about those birds at some threads, I adopted a bonded couple of GCC and lovebird from someone in Southshore, MA, who claimed that she rescued those birds. After a week of struggle, I received a complain from my neighbor regarding noise, and decided to find them a new home.

Since I found those parrots from Craigslist, I posted the ad with the same adoption fee. However, my message was flagged twice, and after a heated debate at the forum, I decided to explain why they needed to be rehomed together (afraid of separating triggers plucking feathers), and the adoption fee of $150 is a donation to 501 organization, and $50 for me to cover expense.

What I leaned from this experience is that craigslist has very strict rules against those who tries to sell their unwanted birds, claiming "adoption fee." The most of ad listings web sites have no flag system for suspicious adoption fees. I adopted those birds with no health/refund guaranteed, and I did not negotiate their price as adoption fee, which later I found out that it is a market price for two parrots. I done all this because I believed that someone who rescued parrots would not refuse to take them back, or any other ways to take money and disappear. The same exact person who gave me this GCC/lovebird is still listing other GCC for $300 at other sites as “adoption”. I think Birdboard.com should definitely have a good adoption control system to avoid unwanted birds traded as "adoption." And if someone needs to give up their parrots for good home (not for breeding,) they should ask adoption fee addressed to non-profit organization.

Thank you for reading,

Binobina

If interested, please see how my ad was flagged at s.f. bayarea forums - craigslist

[kensbuns]

Originally Posted by binobina

Hi Kevin,
I just want to share the experience I had at Craigslist, trying to rehome my parrots.

As I posted about those birds at some threads, I adopted a bonded couple of GCC and lovebird from someone in Southshore, MA, who claimed that she rescued those birds. After a week of struggle, I received a complain from my neighbor regarding noise, and decided to find them a new home.

Since I found those parrots from Craigslist, I posted the ad with the same adoption fee. However, my message was flagged twice, and after a heated debate at the forum, I decided to explain why they needed to be rehomed together (afraid of separating triggers plucking feathers), and the adoption fee of $150 is a donation to 501 organization, and $50 for me to cover expense.

What I leaned from this experience is that craigslist has very strict rules against those who tries to sell their unwanted birds, claiming "adoption fee." The most of ad listings web sites have no flag system for suspicious adoption fees. I adopted those birds with no health/refund guaranteed, and I did not negotiate their price as adoption fee, which later I found out that it is a market price for two parrots. I done all this because I believed that someone who rescued parrots would not refuse to take them back, or any other ways to take money and disappear. The same exact person who gave me this GCC/lovebird is still listing other GCC for $300 at other sites as “adoption”. I think Birdboard.com should definitely have a good adoption control system to avoid unwanted birds traded as "adoption." And if someone needs to give up their parrots for good home (not for breeding,) they should ask adoption fee addressed to non-profit organization.

Thank you for reading,

Binobina

If interested, please see how my ad was flagged at s.f. bayarea forums - craigslist

First of all money should not be an issue when placing birds in good home and should not go to just anyone with the money. I would never and I repeat never place a single on of my birds to the highest bidder. Nor would I put an add anywhere. They are like my children. Sooo with that being said personally I disagree with your post. JMHO!!

[WarriorWoman1st]

I recently put a cockatoo on Craigs list . Abby is a fine Umbrella, completely hand tame and in good feather however she is a birdie bully. I wanted her to go to an 'only 1 bird' home, I have 5. 99 % of the emails I got were from people who wanted a free bird or a $ 1500.00 bird for a hundred bucks. I asked for an adoption fee of a third of that to sort the good from the bad and to cover her cast iron cage. People who had never handled a bird in their lives wanted one cheap only, 200 was to much. And that was after all the idiots kept flagging our ad. In Tampa anything bird related gets flagged and removed if its not free. I did list her here tho and iI still have Abby picking on the others. lol

[Tinna]

People are really stupid *Bleepage* sometimes and I hate it. I'm a person who'd take in a bird for free yes I'll admit that because I can't afford to go out and buy a big bird at a petshop I'd rather get a rescue or adopt one for a good home but I think it's ridiculous to flag someone for listing a bird! There's got to be a better place than craigslist which from what I've seen is a load of crap within itself. There just has to be a better way.

[LouieBird]

I've found items and also posted on Everything from Everywhere with good success, although I am not a fan of such sites. Last weekend I picked up a $600.00 cage for $140.00! It was in perfect shape, just like new.

Brad & Flock

[Oscars Mom]

I live in boston and go to the southshore every weekend in the summer?Did you ship the birds to california?It makes no sense. Your best bet would be to finnd a breeder in Ca. who will take the birds.Dont expect to even make your money back because their doing you a favor . Just find a good home for themand chock it up to a bad experience.

[jriley]

I think the whole issue is tough. The fact is, there are a lot of unwanted birds out there. I've seen ads on CL asking to trade a conure for a boat! Most of these people probably got their birds from pet stores or classified ads (online or in print) and don't know how to go about rehoming them. Many view their birds as property that cost them a lot of money and they want to get their money back out of them. I've responded to several ads on our local CL and the people I talked to were pretty clear about wanting their money back out of their birds and talked of what they were "worth".

Fact is, though, the line between adoption fee and sale price is pretty blurry. I've always heard that you should charge an adoption fee so that you are sure the adoptive person can take care of the animal (Petfinder has a little article about that very topic). However, look at all of us. If anyone gave any of us a free bird, it would have a great life. But-how many of us are willing to lay out big money for another bird? I don't actively want or need another bird, but if I saw one that needed a new home and a fresh start, I have the room and the resources to help it. A big adoption fee keeps me from doing that because I see that money as money taken away from the pets I already have and it doesn't matter if it's a donation to a charity or money given to the owner. The only way an adoption fee truly makes sense to me as serving the purported purpose is if the adopter had some way of putting money into an account at the avian vet to show they had means of caring for it.

Another fact is that there are few bird rescues or sanctuaries and most people who own pet birds aren't aware of those that exist. There are also many potential great pet bird owners out there who have never had a pet bird. All of us here started out as a non-bird person (though I had my first pet bird at age 9!) and we all found the resources we needed to become good bird people. Maybe we should shift our focus to making the needs of pet birds more known so that we make more good homes out there.

Anyway, for the current post above, I do think that $200 sounds like a sale price and not an adoption fee. I think an adoption fee of that amount would scare away anyone wanting to adopt. Seriously-a person could get handfed birds for that price, why pay that to take on someone's problem? The idea of a donation seems nice, but it gets in the way of the true goal which is to find them a good home. Seems to me the best way to find a good home is to offer them for free subject to home inspection. You would get a ton of responses, but if you made a simple list of questions to use as a screening tool, you could weed out the worst prospects.

Try: 1) Have you ever had a pet bird? What kind? How long did you have it? What happened to it (if no longer have it)? 2) what would you feed them and how often? 3) how much do you think it would cost you each month to properly care for them? 4) what is the name and phone number of the nearest avian vet? have you ever been to that office? 5) describe a typical day with the bird(s) in your home.

When I gave away my golden retriever years ago I asked questions like this over the phone and picked the best person to take him. Yes, they could have lied, but for birds it is harder to know the correct answers if you aren't a bird person.

Julie