Bird Breeding Mills By Lexi Puhl http://petstoreabuse.com

 

Most of us have heard the sad stories about puppy mills. Hundreds of miserable creatures huddled in crowded cages - their only purpose in life being to breed. However, most people have not been exposed to the avian equivalent, the bird mill.

Bird mills are facilities which are used to mass produce parrots for the pet trade. Almost all pet stores, especially the larger chains, purchase their parrots from some form of bird mill (such as Kaytee Preferred Birds, which supplies PETsMART).

 

Most bird mill breeding facilities resemble warehouses. Breeder birds, many of them former pets, are kept in small cages with nothing more than food, water, and a nestbox. They are never handled or given any mental stimulation. Confinement in such conditions leads to neurotic behavior in many breeder birds.

 

Not all breeder birds are compatible with each other. If introductions are not carefully done with acute observation and possible intervention - and they rarely are in bird mills - one or both birds of a prospective breeding pair can be seriously injured or killed.

 

If a pair does successfully breed and a female lays fertile eggs, they are removed from the nestbox and placed in an incubator. Chicks are not allowed any contact with their parents. Assembly line-type tubes are used to put food directly into the baby birds' crops. This tube feeding makes it very hard for a chick to be weaned later on because the chick associates eating with a tube instead of food.

 

Some bird mills wean baby birds using a technique called deprivation, or forced, weaning. During deprevation weaning chicks are refused formula with the assumption that when they get hungry enough they'll eat solid food. Deprivation weaning can result in malnutrition, starvation, and permanent behavior problems.

 

Most bird mills wean chicks to cheap seed-only diets in order to save money. This can cause serious health problems and often make it difficult for the birds to be converted to a more nutritious diet later on.

 

The birds the mills are unable to wean are often turned over to inexperienced pet shop employees, who in turn sell the fragile creatures to uninformed buyers. These unfortunate birds usually starve to death or die at the hands of misdirected people attempting to handfeed them. (Click here for more information on the sale of unweaned birds.) http://www.petstoreabuse.com/unweaned.html

 

Another practice in bird mills is the prophylactic use of antibiotics as a substitute for good sanitation. This can have terrible short term as well as long term effects on the birds: broad-spectrum antibiotics destroy the beneficial flora and fauna residing in birds, leaving them even more susceptible. Fragile organs can be damaged and some birds have built up resistances to certain types of antibiotics.

 

The less obvious result of production breeding in bird mills is young parrots that have not been handled or socialized. These chicks often develop serious behavioral problems as they mature and make horrible pets. Across the country bird rescue groups are overflowing with abandoned birds - not doubt most the result of production breeding in bird mills.

 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Unfortunately, the Animal Welfare Act doesn't cover birds. So, unlike puppy mills, the USDA has no authority over bird mills. But there are still a few actions you can take against bird mills:

 

* Never buy a mass-marketed bird from a chain pet store! These companies will not stop mass-producing and selling birds until it is no longer profitable to do so.

 

* Encourage pet stores to provide the same adoption services for parrots that they do for dogs and cats instead of selling birds in their stores.

 

* If you see a bird being neglected or abused, report it to your local humane organization or animal control agency; or contact the local law enforcement office or nearest humane agency.

 

LINKS/SOURCES

Sale of Unweaned Birds - By Lexi Puhl http://www.petstoreabuse.com/unweaned.html

 

A Bird Mill Exposed - Video shot inside of an actual bird mill.

 

Scudder's Parrot Depot - Story on the largest bird mill in Washington state. http://www.parrotprotection.org/en/envelop.../pd-00-over.ssi

 

Hundreds of Birds Found in Van - News article on bird mill operator selling birds from his van. http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=...&id=4655237

 

The Problem with Bird Mills - Know the Source of Your Bird to Avoid Life-Long Issues http://www.parrotparrot.com/articles/aa051100.htm

 

Sale of Unweaned Baby Birds - Many breeders and stores sell unweaned baby parrots, claiming that finishing the hand-feeding and weaning process yourself will "guarantee a hand-tame bird" and "ensure bonding." While this sounds compelling, it is not true! http://www.avianwelfare.org/issues/unweaned.htm

 

The Poultrification of Parrots - Has The Bird Biz Shot Itself In The Foot? http://www.companionparrot.com/Poultrifica...f%20Parrots.htm

 

'Factory farming' approach takes toll - When it comes to the money, breeding parrots is easy. http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/v...p-4885801c.html

 

Kaytee Preferred Birds and Petsmart - Partners in the Avi-industry—Is this plan for the birds? http://www.companionparrot.com/Kaytee%20Pr...red%20Birds.htm

 

Production Breeding & Mass-Marketing of Parrots for the Pet Trade - Over the past decade, exotic "pets" like parrots have become the rage even though they are challenging to keep in captivity. http://www.avianwelfare.org/issues/marketing.htm

 

Parrots and People….A Relationship of Conflict - by Tami Myers and Mary Margison, The Beak Retreat http://www.avianwelfare.org/issues/articles/conflict.htm

Edited March 9, 200916 yr by Elly

OMG!!

This gives me images of "The Island" where they are growing human organs in living clones.

 

These bird mills sound disgusting!! I am mortified! and the animal act doesn't cover birds... whats with that

Oh god I feel sick!

 

Can I re post this on other boards? I have a few that might benefit from knowing about this.

As with the other one please everyone be aware that this is the situation in AMERICA, it is much more regulated in Aus

That is really horriable

Oh god I feel sick!

 

Can I re post this on other boards? I have a few that might benefit from knowing about this.

Email the author...thats how I got permission.

I am sure it is prevelant everywhere MB and it is sickening. I have yet to come across a bird miller here where I am but I am sure they are here, it is probably more prevelant in the warmer states.

This was a great read. After I saw this post KAZ, I went on to YouTube and did a search for bird mills and stuff like that... there are a few videos on there that were so disturbing. People who worked at PetSmart and APET (an animal supplier for PetSmart, WalMart, PETCO, etc...) showed secret footage of the conditions these animals live/ship in and the mistreatment they go through. Worse of all were the non-vets (average Joe) doing procedures on amimals that weren't even doctors. The worse one I watched was of a baby Goffin Cockatoo that was put through over 35 days of suffering without real vet care before dying. I couldn't help but be so upset after seeing some of them, but I can tell you this... I will be one of those people that speak out against large chain pet stores in regard to their pets now. I wanted to cry seeing all that and reading about this. If you feel like a good cry visit YouTube and see what I'm talking about. SO SAD. But good for you KAZ for putting these thoughts in the back of other peoples' minds so that they too can spread the word. If enough people stop buying from places like this maybe a pet supply store will be just that and not be able to sell pets from the store one day??? I hope so.

Email the author...thats how I got permission.

 

Thanks I will do that

 

 

I am sure it is prevelant everywhere MB and it is sickening. I have yet to come across a bird miller here where I am but I am sure they are here, it is probably more prevelant in the warmer states.

 

 

They are MB and Elly. I visited one, not knowing what it was just that the guy said that he had birds for sale and I could buy in Bulk (should have been my first clue) buy more then 6 birds get a discount it was shocking. Not as bad as some of the vids on you tube but still I felt ill and then came home and had a shower and bleched my clothes before interacting with my birds

In the early days when I was buying pet type budgies I went to some places here in Perth Western Australia that could loosely be described as a bird mills. Cages crammed into every conceivable nook and cranny, shed and hallway. Dark gloomy areas where breeding would be hard due to light conditions, much less healthy happy birds. Spider and mouse and rat infested places...so many rodents that they were readily seen wandering around the yard, up walls, through aviaries and breeding cages.One man had an aviary with colony breeding where if you chose a bird flying around he caught it and sold it to you regardless of if it was parent of one of the nestboxes with babies in it...a sale was a sale. He didnt know which ones were parents and he didnt care. Dead birds on the ground. I reported two such people.Others advertise weekly to buy your budgies....these are the ones that breed in massive quantities for the petshop trade and need replacement stock to breed to death. You recognise their phone numbers when they both want to buy and are selling at the same time. No wonder pet shops wont pay more than a few measly dollars for a lovingly raised healthy baby from a good breeder as the others are sold in job lots for just a couple of dollars each. Never mind the co0cktail of health issues those ones come with...the breeders of those know enough to breed for pretty colours and more often than not no thought given to breeding for healthy lines. I soon found I would rather buy from a small time breed who loved their pets than from any petshop. At least with a breeder I got their background history and got to see parents, grandparents etc etc

Edited January 12, 201015 yr by KAZ

Thank you, KAZ, I try to tell this to every person I can when they ask me where to get their new bird from. Sometimes I worry they don't listen to me, but hopefully the message has been spread around to most of the users on this site.