BMustee

What the heck...here is the owls. <br><br>Post edited by: BMustee, at: 2007/12/07 15:33

The Male has the red head, white chest...the female has the black head and purple chest. The female actually picked me. Everytime I walk over to the cage she is in she jumps over to the perch closest to me and starts checking me out, turning her head upside down...she is just too cute. Here is a pic of the stars...my b/f calls them space cucumbers:laugh: .

LOL...yeah. Everyone calls me "the finch girl". I found a pic on Google that shows what my male and female gouldians look like...I hope I can get them soon.

My CAG is 8 1/2 months-old and he sounds like he is going to be talking soon. He can almost say "WHAT"...pretty funny :laugh: .

Yeah, thats what is weird. The last finch to come into the flock was her, and the grey is the only other bird I have got sence her...and I would know if something was wrong with him. I really, really, really, want to get those Stars and I was telling my boss at the pet store how much I loved these two specific Lady Goulian finches so she said she would talk to the owner about giving me a deal...I was planning on buying them the other day right before the Star died. So, I have 3 Stars and 2 Gouldians that are in the works...all of which are very $Pricey$. I was thinking about getting a Quarintene kit from a place called All Bird Products...the kit has dewormer, mild antibiotic, SCATT, and a few other things and treat all the finches. Do you think this is something I should get?

Thanks Dan...I feel soooo bad for my male because this is his second mate to die on him. Because all the Star finches in my county are from my pair I can't just go to the pet store and buy a new female...I'm not having any baby Kentucky finches. :laugh: I'm in talks with an aviary out in Cali that have Stars and can sell me three unrelated birds (I might as well get a second set). The big catch is that I have to ship them on Delta due to the season so it's going to cost me $115 just to ship. I have to get my male a new female but I don't want to spend that kind of money if there is something infecting my flock. I have been reading all kinds of things online today trying to find something that sounds like what she had so I know what to treat the other birds if signs of illness pop up on them.

Well, I have the large flight cage in my bedroom and watch them all the time and I have never seen any bickering between them...these sets have been together for about 2 years. I used to have a set of Zebra's in the cage with the stars and owls and they would chase the other birds so I got rid of the Zebras due to the bullying. I have yet to witness any "pecking" fights or perch chasing. I'm thinking that she was starting to get plucked because the other birds may have sensed she was sick and were trying to run her off...but I didn't witness any of it.

When you say loose...are they loose at the base/body or is there a break in the shaft?

OK, this isn't about my CAG...it's about my female Star finch. I know, I know, there is another room for this but there is not much traffic in the "other birds" room so I'm asking here. About a month ago I noticed that the base of her beak was starting to look whitish and the normally vibrant orange/red was lightening up all the way to the tip to a dull orange/horn color. She laid 3 clutches this breeding season and had no issues with egg binding and for being her first breeding season she successfully raised 6 babies. Now, the day before she passed I noticed that she was getting plucked around her left leg and had a dime sized bold spot. I was getting worried about her but the Owl finches are laying eggs so there was the possibility that they were picking on her for bedding. I put extra nesting material at the bottom of the cage and was going to keep an extra eye on her. I came home from work the next day and found her dead...I was very upset. She never got puffy, or was staying at the bottom of the cage longer than normal for her. Has anyone heard about any avian illness that might present itself like this? I still have my male Star and the set of Owls and I would like know what happened to her to take precautionary measures with them. As for taking her to get a necropsy done, I'm guessing that she died in the morning because she was already starting to smell when I found her around 5 o’clock, which means decomposition had started and I would probably waist my money and the vet’s time having one done.<br><br>Post edited by: BMustee, at: 2007/12/06 15:56

Well, if she had her wings clipped too short then yes she could have broken her tail feathers. I had a Sun Conure that had his wings clipped too short and every one of his tail feathers got broken. If there are not any tips coming out then it is not a molt...you should be finding the "stumps" of the broken feahters on the bottom of the cage. You should know if the feathers were broken because you would have seen the crash landing on the floor and seen the tail feathers bent when it happened. This could be like what fireball said and your grey could be starting a self-mutilation habbit. So, if you find stumps it's a molt...no stumps you might have a problem.

I am the world’s worst speller and yes, many times I will run a spell check in word because I must have OCD or something. I'm on the forum while at work and sometimes I don't have the time to get all nit-picky. I also could care less if someone was to use the word "there" when they should have used "their". My mother was an English major so I got corrected every time I used the wrong grammar when speaking, but in an internet world that used terms like LOL, JMO, IDK, BRB, and GFY, grammar is the last thing on anyone's mind. I tell you what, reading all the posts with purposely-misspelled words made me feel like I was reading Flowers for Algernon...LOL.

Yeah, that could be what is causing the problems right now, but it sounds like there may be other forces at work here as well. Who takes him to get the nails and wings clipped?

The store was opened in 1981 and is owned and operated by the Hornsby family. It is a huge store, so it is pretty surprising that it's a private owner and not a huge chain. The Zandri's bird is a Mealy Amazon. That one was about 6 months old in that picture.<br><br>Post edited by: BMustee, at: 2007/12/04 16:56

No, I'm 22 and I have been out of high school for almost 7 years now...it only took me 1 1/2 years to graduate. From your wording it most definitely sounded like you were saying that all employees at pet stores are morons and did not leave any wiggle room for the exceptions, thus the "crucifixion" as you put it. Also, my store rarely hires high school kids because of child labor laws and schedules. I think there might be one or two in the kennel, but not in with the birds. High schoolers to me is not just an age bracket, it's a state of mind. I know people that are in their mid 20's and by the way they act you would swear they are were freshman. As for the sanitizer, you wrote ***"so called employees don't use or tell customers to sanitize their hands before touching those birds. I say never, they are kids from high school that have the knowledge of a flea..."*** that sounds to me that you say NO to the request of sanitation. You may not have meant ALL employees at pet stores, but your wording implied otherwise...which I took offence to.

I have had a few people come in and say "I give :: blanck :: to my parrot and he loves it." but it's something toxic and shouldn't be given to them...I figured I could give people the lists to try and save a few birds. Like I was saying before, some people don't do any research into bird health.

Yeah...It's a fun place to go. I know most pet stores only have a few parrots at a time but as you can see from the list above we got birds coming out the wazoo! I've seen those little fenic foxes there, we have sugar gliders right now, and all kinds of weird critters. Once we had a kid for sale.....goat kid that is. LOL

ohhh geesh...you two are too much :blush: . Thank you, and I do wish there were more people in this world that would see animals as more than just animals but individuals with wants and needs. I know I’m not alone though, because I’m sure that all of you are the same way as me.

ohhh man....it won't post in JPEG or GIF...well anyways it was a pic of the crazy cat lady from the simpson with the head of Hemingway put on her....Funny funny stuff.

<br><br>Post edited by: BMustee, at: 2007/12/03 20:11

Kibibi wrote: LOL...oh yeah, for sure. I was searching online for the "parrot" that was asked about and your right, he had a ton of them. I got the mental image of hemingway as the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons...LOL.

Geesh...double post.<br><br>Post edited by: BMustee, at: 2007/12/03 18:53

No problem...I needed to pull those up anyways because I was going to make pamphlets for people to take home that bought parrots at the pet store I work at.

And thank you Kibibi and Christina for the kind words. My store has a website, you can watch in real time what is going on in the store from cameras and there is another section where you can look at all the pets that went home each week. http://www.petkingdom.org/

I work at Pet Kingdom, and at my store the sales staff in the bird department is very knowledgeable. One lady owned a pet store back in the day that specialized in Amazon parrots, and the other lady was a breeder and at one time had about 300 birds in her care, the manager of the department has worked there 15 years and can tell you the life story of every bird there. Now, our maintenance staff for the bird department is not the most knowledgeable, but they don’t interact with the customers and focus on keeping the department clean…you all think having one parrot that throws it’s food all over the floor is bad, try having 12 macaws determined to make a tile floor look like peanut colored carpet. I know that at least a couple of the girls that do puppy sales are very knowledgeable as well. The flea brains as Ziggy put it normally don’t last more than a few days because we all work very, very hard and must have everything up to the owners standards at all times. Normally in my department the people that don’t love the birds quit after a day or two because they can’t take getting bit nonstop…I get nailed at least once a day and I know what I am doing, so imagine the people that don’t know. LOL. I’m sure there are some shady pet stores, but I know that there are breeders that can be just as bad or worse. At least with pet stores there are regulations and customers that see what is going on, you never know what is going on at a breeder’s home unless they open it up for you. I agree with Jimmy being a good candidate for working in a pet store. He’s always on the forum asking questions and I’m sure that if someone is asking that many questions they also are doing some research on the side.