I went in to a pet shop half an hour away from where I lived the other week, because there birds are normally in fantastic condition and really well cared for. Sadly this week was not the best.

 

They had hand tamed cockatiels in a cage, there were blood splattered all over their chests from where they had pulled out their feathers in complete stress and they were away from human contact, just left in a cage until someone came and brought them. The woman put it down to 'moulting' but anyone who knew anything about birds could see that they were stressed and pulling out their feathers. They were huddled on the perch and not responsive to anything, just pulling feathers out and squawking.

 

This really broke my heart as I didn't think that anyone would treat a bird this way, even more when it is used to human contact. The other pet shops around the town all keep their hand tamed birds out where they can interact with humans and get lots of head scratches. The only time I had seen a hand tamed bird in a cage, is a quaker parrot because he had hit puberty and wanted to nibble on everything and anything.

 

To see birds treated like this just made me sick. Isn't there laws for pet shops to obey in order for hand tamed birds to get the treatment they deserve? I feel sorry for the breeders who take a lot of time to hand tame the birds, just to end up stuck in a pet shop with no human contact.

 

Has anyone else seen anything like this?

Or is it only this one pet shop? I hope that it was only this pet shop, as I couldn't imagine any other birds having to go through that.

thats terrible, poor little thing

 

fortunatly i haven't seen anything like this.. poor little guys

 

 

Yes, I have seen it. I have seen a few love birds in a small cage once, actually very recently, who had been pulling their own feathers out because of boredom. The poor things, the only things in their cage was a perch and their food and water dishes that sat on the floor, and each other of course. The poor things were helpless.

I have seen much worse - such as a sick bird sitting at the bottom of the cage surrounded by many other budgies, no one bothering to tend to his illness - but anything else I would rather not mention. I recommend you don't buy from that pet store again if you dislike the way they treat their birds. If you buy a bird you just feel sorry for - and I admit I have done it before - then the pet store isn't going to learn much from it, all they'll learn is that if they sell sick or injured birds or don't clean the cage or whatever, customers will feel sorry for them and buy them. It's hard not to, but don't give the pet store money for doing something wrong, that isn't how it goes.

Maybe report this to the RSPCA if it gets any worse.