A couple of years back I settled in Dalat, a French Colonial hill station in Southern Vietnam, it's a beautiful place, but one does need a hobby, so soon after arriving I decided to build an aviary and purchase some birds. The aviary build was the easy part, but where do I get some birds? I scouted around Dalat, through the cobbled stone streets, asking shop keepers in my pidgeon French if they knew where I could buy birds, and without luck, until one guy ushered me out back of his store and into a shed, and there, hanging from the roof were....birds, whole roasted ducks, head and all, dangling from the rafters, there had been something lost in translation. My search continued,

 

Finally an elderly gent told me about his cousin who lived in the country, "He have many, many birds" the old guy assured me, so at 7am the next morning I climbed into his car...an old, old Puegeot 404, and we cluttered along, up into the mountains until we came to a kind of farm property, we walked to the door and the stooped old owner ushered us out into his back shed.....not more dead ducks, I hoped, but to my surprise there were birds, live birds, real birds, my search was over. The man called himself Vu, old Vu must have had 200 birds flying freely around a shed 10ftx20ft, there were finches, canaries, a couple of cockatoos and yes, budgies. I looked at them and the other parrots; Eastern Rosellas and King Parrots, I wanted to ask him how he had got these birds over here, but I knew that this is Vietnam, and foreigners don't ask questions. there were 2 dead finches on the dirt floor, and every now and then, you'd see a couple of mice scurrying here and there, the feed was just wheat, shovelled onto the floor, and the water had a greenish tinge. I purchased 6 budgies - a pair of green spangles and 2 pair of sky blue normals, there were no other choices of colour. I paid the nice man the equivalent of A$150 in US notes which even by Aussie standards was steep, but I reminded myself that these are black marketeers. The birds now have a home in my aviary and the group has now expanded through breeding to number 26. So that is my bad pet shop story.

That is an interesting story, So I guess the birds were smuggled over their by some low life from here. poor birds. Well I am glad you rescued a few birds and I am sure they much be much happier with you than in his shed. Fancy feeding budgies wheat, it would be to hard for them to crack unless it was soaked. Some photos of yours birds would be nice