Local breeder - Ontario -

[lisege]

I'm looking for a local breeder as I'd like to get a slate budgie eventually, like next year.
So I'm googling and find a few breeders on the province and I'm surfing their sites. Now, I don't know much about larger parrots like greys or conures, but the price seems to be crazy, like $1300-$1500 CDN for a hand tamed bird.
Is this typical?
This is what I'm thinking, and again let me re-iterate that I am new and NOT a breeder, so no offence intended or implied.
If the breeding pair does all the work and all the breeder does is supply the place, food and makes the baby friendly, isn't charging so much for a bird like running a puppy mill?
I hope I don't offend anyone.

[Newticus]

I don't know about it being a normal price, but the rarer mutations of birds can cost more for a number of reasons. Depending on the genetics of the mutation, the parents may not raise only slate coloured mutation babies, which means it is harder to breed them. It also may have cost the breeder a large amount of money to aquire the mutations in the first place. I can't tell you if it's an unreasonable price to pay, but that is probably the rational behind the prices you have seen. There are lots of grey budgies out there, why not go for one that doesn't have a fancy mutation name attached to it.

Melanie

[lisege]

Originally Posted by Newticus

I don't know about it being a normal price, but the rarer mutations of birds can cost more for a number of reasons. Depending on the genetics of the mutation, the parents may not raise only slate coloured mutation babies, which means it is harder to breed them. It also may have cost the breeder a large amount of money to aquire the mutations in the first place. I can't tell you if it's an unreasonable price to pay, but that is probably the rational behind the prices you have seen. There are lots of grey budgies out there, why not go for one that doesn't have a fancy mutation name attached to it.

Melanie

Thank you Melanie.
My first two birds were bought from pet stores who listed them as "fancies", and I got what was available. Now that I am getting to be more knowledgable about the varieties and the looks of some, I would like to get a slate/grey bird at some point. But how does one get around the pricetag for the name?

[shosh]

There's a grey budgie at the petsmart in Richmond Hill, ON....leslie and elgin mills. Was just there yesterday....pretty little thing.

[lisege]

Originally Posted by shosh

There's a grey budgie at the petsmart in Richmond Hill, ON....leslie and elgin mills. Was just there yesterday....pretty little thing.

Thank you for the heads up. That's a little far for me though.