I got my new recent friend Ember from a pet shop in Werribee.. I won't name it. Yes I know pet shop birds arent the best quality, but my theory is, someone is going to buy them, and a budgie stands a better chance with me than it does as an impulse buy for someone who knows nothing about budgies. I'd put in the hard yards helping and vet visits etc if they were nessesary, and im guessing alot of pet owners out there wouldn't.. but anyway.

 

This pet shop, while the budgies looked fairly okay, albeit some a bit young but they were in a seperate cage with no price on it so i'm hoping they werent for sale yet..

 

....

 

The finches. I was just looking at the other birds while the lady was fetching my budgie... And quite a few of the finches have had the feathers plucked from the back of their necks by other other finches it seems. I saw 2 that were really bad, i let the lady know and pointed them out to her and she just ummed and arred that they did that kind of thing in this kind of season and they wouldn't obviously sell them like that.... but didnt make any attempt to remove those finches from the cages :question:

 

Just wanting to know if what i was told is right, that its normal behaviour or atleast common behaviour for finches to do that.. or if it warrants a bit more attention, and if it does warrant a bit more attention, is there anything I can do?

That's not normal for happy finches. But petshops often have too many birds for the cages and they will pluck each other if they are overcrowded or if they have several species together that might not get on. With what she said about it being the season is kind of true, some species of finches might be more aggressive when it's breeding time, but again if they had enough space it wouldn't be a problem. Sorry, but it really annoys me when people put them in tiny cages just because they are small.

If the finches with the feathers plucked from the back of their necks were females, this mostly happens in the nest by the male. You may find that these finches have only just been brought in after having been bred.

I just felt sorry for them :thumbs_up: The cages were so crowded they barely had enough room to sit on the perches.

Well atleast i feel a little better knowing it may just be a natural thing

When we got our finches, 2 were like that and the shop owner said exactly what KAZ said. The feathers grew back in a couple of weeks and they're fine now.

l think i know the pet shop in werribee your talking about. i have not been there for years now as i left melb but i had no problems with his budgies. when i used to go there he would also sell king quails that would have their heads bald :thumbs_up:

Yeah Budgies looked good enough though.. bit over crowded but none looked sick or injured atleast!

well thats a bit nasty. I hate seeing birds ill treated. Glad about the budgies though!