EllenD
New member
- Aug 20, 2016
- 3,979
- 65
- Parrots
- Senegal Parrot named "Kane"; Yellow-Sided Green Cheek Conure named "Bowie"; Blue Quaker Parrot named "Lita Ford"; Cockatiel named "Duff"; 8 American/English Budgie Hybrids; Ringneck Dove named "Dylan"
Long story, but this is Dylan!!!
EDIT: Okay, sorry, my tablet was going to die, so I had to hurry up and save the photos to the thread and get to my laptop, lol...
So late yesterday we at the Avian/Reptile Rescue I volunteer at were made aware of the conditions the birds at a pet shop about 30-40 minutes away from us were being forced to live in, conditions which included neglect, filth, and what the people who informed us of this thought was too many birds in a single cage, which was resulting in some birds being "eaten alive"...I had visions of what he meant by this, he swore that one of the Ringneck Doves that they had, in a large flight cage with 7 or 8 other Ringneck Doves, was being "eaten alive" by the other Doves in with him...Along with this was another same-sized flight cage with 40-50 Budgies in it, etc. We get phone calls, emails, people coming by and telling us, etc. all the time, every day, alerting us to animal neglect and abuse, both in pet shops and private owners (by far it's more private owners). Knowing that there is very little that the "authorities" can or would do to remedy the situation, we know that 99% of the time, especially when it's a pet shop, the best thing to do is to go and talk to them, and simply ask them to make some changes in their daily care routines, and usually that does the trick...The other 1% you do everything you can to get the animals out of there immediately...
So I took a drive down to this pet shop, which by the way is the largest privately-owned, independent pet shop in central PA, and is very popular. I don't go there regularly because there is another one in my hometown that is only 20 minutes away and I know the family that owns that one, and they specialize in both parrots and reptiles...But I have been to this pet shop many times throughout the years, and was very, very surprised to hear the report about what was going on in their "bird room"...And when I got there I was shocked to see that the people were not far-off in their description of things, and they weren't exaggerating too much...
This pet shop has employees who breed birds, and they have local breeders that they buy their birds from as well. They have a small bird room, and generally they always have many different species of Canaries and Finches, along with some American Budgies, some Cockatiels, some Love Birds, some different species of Conures, usually Green Cheeks, and then they usually also have some Ringneck Doves and Diamond Doves. Yesterday they had all of these (only one normal Green Cheek Conure), plus probably 10+ Parrotlets in a large flight cage. They did have WAY TOO MANY Budgies in the flight cage, but not 50, more like 30-40, it was too many. What was more alarming to me was the condition of the cages. Each one had at least, no exaggeration, over an inch of poop and seeds in their bottoms, it looked like they hadn't even dumped the cage tray, let alone actually cleaned the cages, in over a month. None of them. And it stunk because of this. But other than those two complaints, i didn't see anything too horrible...except for this poor Ringneck Dove...
So they had a large flight cage with 6 Ringneck Doves in it. 5 of them were visibly much older than the 6th one, and in the first 5 minutes I was there watching them, they all had taken shots at this young one, pulling it's feathers out, poking it's eyes, and scaring it to death. The poor thing was doing everything it could to get away from the others, but it's feet were so caked in feces that it could hardly walk, as were the 2 perches in the flight cage. So I spoke to the employees, and they actually were extremely nice and agreed with me about the condition of the cages and the smell, and they were going to separate the Budgies and clean all of the cages out today, which we are going to check later this evening...But this poor little baby Ringneck Dove came home with me!!!
I named her Dylan, and she arrived at the shop last week (hand-raised by an employee at her home) last week, just after weaning. I had no choice but to give her a shower last night, as she was caked in not only feces, but also the hand-feeding formula she was fed by her breeder. It was all over her, and had been there for quite some time, it was nasty. So she got a shower, which she did not appreciate AT ALL, and then I had no choice but to clip both her wings and her tail, as I just could not get the feces/hand-feeding formula out of her feathers...well, to be fair she really had no tail or wings to begin with, as the other Doves in the cage with her just ripped her apart. So now she's clean and has "chicken-butt", and she lost her pilot's license, but all of these things will come back soon. She was not amused with me at all last night, today she's not thrilled but she's getting better. She eats like a horse, and she crawled up on my bed and snuggled this morning while I was watching a movie, so she can't hate me too much, lol.
So that's my news, I now have a baby Ringneck Dove named Dylan...I've never owned a Dove myself, though my mom and stepfather have raised various game birds/poultry over the years, both Doves and Pigeons, so I'm familiar. They are so different than parrots, although Dylan has taken-over the large play-gym and is now repetitively banging one of the toys with a bell on it, over and over and over and over...So maybe she's not that different than the parrots after all...
EDIT: Okay, sorry, my tablet was going to die, so I had to hurry up and save the photos to the thread and get to my laptop, lol...
So late yesterday we at the Avian/Reptile Rescue I volunteer at were made aware of the conditions the birds at a pet shop about 30-40 minutes away from us were being forced to live in, conditions which included neglect, filth, and what the people who informed us of this thought was too many birds in a single cage, which was resulting in some birds being "eaten alive"...I had visions of what he meant by this, he swore that one of the Ringneck Doves that they had, in a large flight cage with 7 or 8 other Ringneck Doves, was being "eaten alive" by the other Doves in with him...Along with this was another same-sized flight cage with 40-50 Budgies in it, etc. We get phone calls, emails, people coming by and telling us, etc. all the time, every day, alerting us to animal neglect and abuse, both in pet shops and private owners (by far it's more private owners). Knowing that there is very little that the "authorities" can or would do to remedy the situation, we know that 99% of the time, especially when it's a pet shop, the best thing to do is to go and talk to them, and simply ask them to make some changes in their daily care routines, and usually that does the trick...The other 1% you do everything you can to get the animals out of there immediately...
So I took a drive down to this pet shop, which by the way is the largest privately-owned, independent pet shop in central PA, and is very popular. I don't go there regularly because there is another one in my hometown that is only 20 minutes away and I know the family that owns that one, and they specialize in both parrots and reptiles...But I have been to this pet shop many times throughout the years, and was very, very surprised to hear the report about what was going on in their "bird room"...And when I got there I was shocked to see that the people were not far-off in their description of things, and they weren't exaggerating too much...
This pet shop has employees who breed birds, and they have local breeders that they buy their birds from as well. They have a small bird room, and generally they always have many different species of Canaries and Finches, along with some American Budgies, some Cockatiels, some Love Birds, some different species of Conures, usually Green Cheeks, and then they usually also have some Ringneck Doves and Diamond Doves. Yesterday they had all of these (only one normal Green Cheek Conure), plus probably 10+ Parrotlets in a large flight cage. They did have WAY TOO MANY Budgies in the flight cage, but not 50, more like 30-40, it was too many. What was more alarming to me was the condition of the cages. Each one had at least, no exaggeration, over an inch of poop and seeds in their bottoms, it looked like they hadn't even dumped the cage tray, let alone actually cleaned the cages, in over a month. None of them. And it stunk because of this. But other than those two complaints, i didn't see anything too horrible...except for this poor Ringneck Dove...
So they had a large flight cage with 6 Ringneck Doves in it. 5 of them were visibly much older than the 6th one, and in the first 5 minutes I was there watching them, they all had taken shots at this young one, pulling it's feathers out, poking it's eyes, and scaring it to death. The poor thing was doing everything it could to get away from the others, but it's feet were so caked in feces that it could hardly walk, as were the 2 perches in the flight cage. So I spoke to the employees, and they actually were extremely nice and agreed with me about the condition of the cages and the smell, and they were going to separate the Budgies and clean all of the cages out today, which we are going to check later this evening...But this poor little baby Ringneck Dove came home with me!!!
I named her Dylan, and she arrived at the shop last week (hand-raised by an employee at her home) last week, just after weaning. I had no choice but to give her a shower last night, as she was caked in not only feces, but also the hand-feeding formula she was fed by her breeder. It was all over her, and had been there for quite some time, it was nasty. So she got a shower, which she did not appreciate AT ALL, and then I had no choice but to clip both her wings and her tail, as I just could not get the feces/hand-feeding formula out of her feathers...well, to be fair she really had no tail or wings to begin with, as the other Doves in the cage with her just ripped her apart. So now she's clean and has "chicken-butt", and she lost her pilot's license, but all of these things will come back soon. She was not amused with me at all last night, today she's not thrilled but she's getting better. She eats like a horse, and she crawled up on my bed and snuggled this morning while I was watching a movie, so she can't hate me too much, lol.
So that's my news, I now have a baby Ringneck Dove named Dylan...I've never owned a Dove myself, though my mom and stepfather have raised various game birds/poultry over the years, both Doves and Pigeons, so I'm familiar. They are so different than parrots, although Dylan has taken-over the large play-gym and is now repetitively banging one of the toys with a bell on it, over and over and over and over...So maybe she's not that different than the parrots after all...
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