I live in PA and was hunting a baby Senegal parrot, Meyers parrot, or Jardines for months and months (originally a Cape Parrot was also on the list but that was pretty much impossible unless I wanted to wait a year+). I have NO bird shops or private breeders near me at all, I had to drive 2 hours for my cockatiel and 4+ for my Green Cheek Conure, so finding a poicephalus species was like trying to find the Fountain of Youth!
Being in an area with no bird breeders, shops, or rescues within really 4+ hours I have utilized
www.birdbreeders.com,
www.hoobly.com,
www.oodles.com, and yes, Craigslist, which is how I found my beautiful, hand-raised, baby Senegal parrot, as well as several Meyers parrots as well. That being said, I had to drive 8 hours one-way to get him in Raleigh, North Carolina! I left on a Monday around lunchtime, got there around 9:00 at night, spent about an hour at my breeder's house (they were a middle-aged couple that have been breeding for decades and were just an absolute pleasure), then my new baby Kane and I drove about 20 minutes into Raleigh and checked in to our hotel, where we got to know each other a little before bed. Then we drove home the next morning. It was well worth the $80 hotel room (Motel 6 that was AMAZING) and the $100 in gas.
Honestly I absolutely HATE Craigslist, it's full of scammers and people that are horrible pet owners that make me so angry, but it seems to be much, much worse if you're selling something yourself rather than buying. In my experience with finding my Senegal parrot I did my research on the breeders I found and spoke to the people I ended up getting my baby from at length before putting a deposit down. Kane and his brother were still being weaned when I found him, so 3 weeks after putting a deposit down via PayPal I got a call from my breeder that he was ready to come home, I paid the balance by PayPal, and then made arrangements for my trip. I was very lucky to find such an experienced, responsible, trustworthy breeder, but I had to travel for it. There were 2 other baby Senegal parrots much closer than Kane, but one of them was $300 more expensive (ridiculous) and the other breeder would not be taking his babies to an avian vet for a wellness check-up and he had no health guarantee, no health certificate from an avian vet, no DNA sexing, and from the photos he sent me and the information he was giving me the babies were much younger than he was saying and we're not even close to being weaned. They also seemed to be parent raised babies that he was passing off as hand raised by him. My point is that it is absolutely worth driving a long distance to find a great breeder, rescue, etc. and to find the right bird for you and your spouse both. Just going to the closest Jardines breeder or shop that has them in Northern California is not at all advised.
Honestly, Craigslist is probably the easiest way to find your Jardines baby, followed by the other sites I listed above. I don't know if you're familiar with how to do a pet search on Craigslist that expands out in distance from your hometown, but that's how I do it when I'm looking for anything and it works wonderfully well.
Go to your local Craigslist homepage if your town/city has one, if not then go to the closest town/city to you that does. Then go to "Community", then "Services", then "Pets". When you get to the "Pets" page in your local section, type Jardines in the search bar at the top of the page and hit search. You'll likely get no results locally (you already know this), but Craigslist will show you any results that may be within 50 miles or so if there are any. Once you perform that initial search near you, on the search results page you get, go to the upper left-hand pull-down box that has your local town's name displayed and pull down another town. That's all you have to do, it will just repeat your Jardines search in whatever town you pull down automatically, and list any and all results. I did the Senegal search all the way from State College, PA down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, up to Boston, MA, East to New Jersey and Long Island, NY, and west out to South Bend, Indiana...and in searching every major city and town with a Craigslist page in the entire Mid-Atlantic and Northeast United States, I found 3 breeders with baby Senegals!
But I found my baby! I also found my Green Cheek Conure baby on
www.birdbreeders.com, most breeders post on there,
www.hoobly.com, and Craigslist, at least that's what I have found.
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