Gross!!!

[Flappuccino]

Ok- I've been to three breeders homes in the last year. Every one of them says the same thing..."All breeders cages look like this..."

What's the deal??? At one home, there was an amazon with SPIDER WEBS in it's cage and feces on the bars. At another, the fruit flies were so thick in the room, I felt itchy for an hour after I left. At the third, there were PILES of poop on perches and on the cage floors over an inch thick!

OMG! Every week my cages, perches and toys look brand spankin' new after I take them out and scrub them. The paper is changed daily, and poop is spot cleaned. Water bowls are sanitized daily.

I get it, that I have only 3 large cages, but my goodness, even if I had 15 cages, and it was my business to sell birds, they would still be taken care of.

In all 3 cases, the handfed babies were kept separate and pretty clean, but the pet adult birds and breeders were disgusting!

I can't stand for my cages to have poop on them. Even one or two globs make me feel like I'm not doing enough. I couldn't imagine having piles in there.

What is your experience with breeders and how they keep their operation?

[chapala]

Those conditions you describe are filthy. If someone can't take care of their breeder birds properly, in clean conditions, they shouldn't have them, in my opinion. There's no excuse for conditions like that as far as I'm concerned!

[Feathered Companions]

So here is my opinion, the breeders you went to did not care properly for the birds. One I do not allow for any reason people to go into my aviary where my breeders are, it is unsafe for the birds. First and most important the person could bring a disease into your aviary, and I spent around 40,000 for all my breeders, so for somebody like me that wouldn't make me very happy. Also it is not mentally safe for the birds (in my opinion), breeders are a little different from everyday pets, they are more untamed. After time they get use to only certain people coming in and out on a daily basis they get use to those people and thats it, so when they hear a new sound or somebody new it tends to startle them. Also if you have a pair seating on eggs or with babies they could damage the eggs and/or babies trying to see who it is or trying to protect their babies. I know my macaws can be somewhat aggressive when it comes to their babies. But i do allow people to see pictures of my breeders on my myspace page I set up, and answer any questions they have. We (my husband and I) spend around 3 hours in the aviary a day, feeding, watering and cleaning. All bowls are sanitize, old food dump and waste cleaned up. My big birds are also in huge self-built cages they are 8 feet long, 6 feet wide and 8 feet tall. My breeders are the birds that stay with me after my babies go home, so I love and care for each one of them, they are all special and deserve the best (in my opinion). So the breeders that you go to in my opinion need to reported, if the state requires a license. Some states don't have a requirement/license to breed birds which I think is horrible, because that is how you get people that don't care Poor things.....

[chapala]

Most good breeders I think do have closed aviaries for all the reasons you describe.

[magdalena]

Wow that sounds absolutely awful. In the cases of dirty cages one would think the breeders would at least say they are a closed aviary instead of flaunting the neglect. Those breeders should be ashamed of themselves.

[Monica]

I've only been to one breeders place. The breeder bought all birds from other breeders, so I assume, but I do not know for sure, if all the birds came with the cages they are in. All indoor pets and babies were taken care of fantastically. However, I recall one mini-macaw in a small cage with a "poop pyramid." I don't think that there was any cage that was bigger than 5' long, 3' deep and 4 high. I'm probably over-exgagerating the cage size by a foot or two, but most were definitely smaller than that! And this breeder also breeds macaws (hybrids and pures). Most of the cages that were in a wooden barn were on the floor. The cages that were in a metal barn were perhaps no bigger than 1' x 1' and these cages had conure pairs in them - except for a couple which housed one amazon each. These cages were also covered in spider webs, I honestly did not want to look for the spiders! The cages outside were under a metal car-port, and most of the cages were hanging. If the cage wasn't hanging then it was a standing cage, an actual bird cage. All the birds had were 1-2 perches, because providing toys *would* distract them from breeding. They are meant to reproduce, and nothing else. I saw a couple of birds with overgrown beaks as well as overpreening problems.

Sadly, I think this is our typical breeder. This does not include breeders that go beyond this and include vet care, large cages, a clean environment, and perhaps even toys to their breeders.

[chapala]

Yes, definitely a sad situation when many parrots live their lives in such poor conditions. All we can do is spread the word to buy from GOOD breeders, who are about their birds and provide decent care. A lot of pet stores probably get their birds from breeders like that, and it's so much better to buy the bird direct from a breeder that you actually meet and learn something about how they keep their birds. There are some good bird stores too (not pet stores) that hand raise babies and provide good conditions.

[jperkins]

That's terrible!!
I am a cockatiel breeder, and there is absolutely NO reason that you cannot keep the cages clean and the birds properly cared for. If the person cannot care for the breeder birds properly, they have no right to bring more birds into this world under those circumstances.
My cages get wiped down every other day and completely scrubbed about every other week (except when they are in breeding mode and then i just thoroughly wipe down when I can w/o startling the parents).
UGH! People just get to me sometimes!

[ldyravon]

I actually went to a local breeders and she had the same cages you mention. Also in the same condition! I noticed one pair of conures that had a "poop pyramid" in like 4 different spots on the bottom and perches and I asked her how safe that really is for breeders?! Her comment was ... "when it gets bad enough they will go down and chew it off so it falls through to the floor so I don't worry about it" .... I was appalled!!!!!! These birds are making her money!!! The least she could do is get them a life above squaller!! I actually turned her in I was so angry. It was sooooooo bad! I have a huge flock of 18 and my cages aren't like that!! Granted I don't scrub on my hands and knees everyday all day but my cages are EXTREMELY clean!! People like that burn me up! If you can't treat them right you should not have them!!

[Vilas]

My first bird, a parakeet, was from a breeder. My friend and I had visited his aviaries many times before we both bought a bird. She got a cockatiel and I got my keet "O.D." Both of our birds lived into their late teens. His aviaries were always clean, plenty of food and water, greens. They were down at the end of a road, off the beaten path. That is where I first saw a pair of Blue Hyacinths...awesome.

Then on the other hand, I went to a bird store in Long Beach, CA earlier last year. Their birds were behind a sliding glass door and OMG, I wanted to take them all home. The birds were all in cages way too small, filthy, crap building up, water was horrible if they had any. And to top that all off? They were proud of their flock and had the most outrageous prices. I'll never go there again. Poor babies. I had to leave, the smell was just choking me.