Red crested cardinals

[Pajarita]

I am sooooooo happy, I could scream! I am going to see and almost surely purchase a male and female Brazilian Red Crested cardinals tonight (the male is missing a foot but he should be able to impregnate the hen anyway and they are supposed to be only two years old).

Now, you know I am against buying or selling birds but you simply do NOT find these birds in rescues (same as purebred canaries) and I've been looking for a pair of this species for over 6 years (the nearest breeders I could find were in Florida and were asking around $900 for a pair - I am paying $500 for them). You see, here they are called 'Brazilian' but they live in my country, too (as well as the Northern part of Argentina) - only they are now almost extinct there because people trapped so many of them. It's also illegal to buy, sell or even keep them back home unless you can prove they were bred in captivity by the only two legal breeders in the country. As we are planning on moving back home when we retire, I have wanted to get my hands on a couple of breeding pairs to bring back with me and to see of making a huge outdoor aviary for them and possibly releasing some back into the wild. And now, I am on my way to finally begin to realize this dream!

[Wolf]

Far out ! this is indeed great news ( pics please ), I wish you the best with this and want to hear more. Thank you for sharing this.

[Pajarita]

I will ask my daughter to come over and take some pictures but the male doesn't look good at all. It's not only his missing foot, it's his plumage, all bed-raggled,spotty and dull... I am hoping it's because of stress and improper diet. The poor thing did not have a single flat perch, only manzanita and concrete which, because of his missing foot, must have been real hard on him (he was either constantly shifting his stump, trying not to fall off or putting it down on a rough surface). The lady also did not switch his diet with the seasons (they are mostly insectivores in the spring and summer and granivore in the winter) or keep them to a solar schedule - I forgot to ask her about supplements but I already sent her an email with questions.

As a 'bonus' she included a male button quail that has been living at the bottom of their cage so now I am going to have to find him a wife as well as make some sort of 'bush' in there because he must be all stressed out been completely exposed as he is... Ay, ay, ay!

[AnarchoBoxer]

In my area we get LOTS of cardinals, among other wonderful wild birds. They're gorgeous. I try to keep plenty of food around for them, and I've had the pleasure of a crow family nesting about 50 yards from my house.

[Wolf]

People can be such jerks! I just could never understand how they can be so cruel and abusive to animals, especially when it is so obvious that what they are doing is abusive. I just get so angry!!!

[Harpmaker]

People can be such jerks! I just could never understand how they can be so cruel and abusive to animals, especially when it is so obvious that what they are doing is abusive. I just get so angry!!!

Wolf, "Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately be explained by incompetence" --Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte and others. I prefer to assume they didn't know how to help the bird, rather than believe people hurt animals on purpose. It keeps my blood pressure lower.

Pajarita, you know that if anyone can bring that bird back, it's you.

[Wolf]

I understand about incompetence as well as malice. I do not recall ascribing the abuse as either, just that from the birds appearance alone that the abuse could not have gone un noticed. The only other thing is that it pisses me off, I also do not claim that this is right or wrong, but that it is.

[Harpmaker]

I'm sure we can agree that the poor bird should have been treated better, and we disapprove of the people who didn't.

[Wolf]

Pretty much! But that is part of why I get so frustrated and angry, while I hate the behavior for whatever reason it occurred I can not disapprove of the person as that is, in my opinion, too close too passing judgment on the person and I can't willingly do that.

[Pajarita]

No, no, the lady did not mean bad! She gave them a big cage and all kinds of supplements as well as egg food and an insect-eating mix. She lives in a teeny, tiny studio so a solar schedule was impossible. Granted that most of the supplements were unnecessary and some of them potentially bad for them (Herb Salad, kelp, spirulina, etc) but her only fault was believing what the bird industry told her. There was no malice or cruelty, it was just ignorance but it was ignorance fueled by naivete. Now, don't misunderstand me, ignorance is not something I forgive easily because, the way I see it, if you take in an animal, you have the moral obligation to do your best for it and that means research... but some people don't understand research the way others do. They think they are doing research when they go to websites where they sell products and read what's written there or when they ask other bird owners instead of going directly to science. One thing you can be sure of, and that is that I already sent her a couple of email explaining what was good and what was bad and why -LOL- And, I have to say, she took it very well and thanked me profusely so I offered her one of my Timbrado babies from next year and will keep in touch with her from now on. She is also moving into a bigger apartment so she will start keeping them at a better light schedule. AND, when I commented on a sad looking, plucked plet hen she had, she immediately told me she feels terribly sad for her because she loves her husband but he works so much he hardly has any time to spend with her and that, if I knew of anybody who had a male and wanted a female, she would gladly give her to them for free. Most definitely NOT a bad or selfish person, quite the contrary!

Keeping birds is HARD! You need to learn so much that it's so hugely different from what we think companion animals would need. This is because we think in terms of mammals which we not only identify with and understand but also have kept for thousands of years. There is very little we don't know about dogs or cats diets, diseases, treatments, behavioral problems, etc but there are mountains we don't know about birds and, what we do know is hard to incorporate into our daily life (like a strict solar schedule, flight time, fresh food diet, etc).

But this lady is going to do well by her birds because she has the love and the right attitude. And now she knows not to believe every claim a manufacturer has about a product -LOL

The birds are doing well, they have been eating and pooping well and they seem to have started calming down quite a bit which is all going to be reversed tomorrow because I need to trim their nails. The male has started singing and I cannot even begin to tell you how much his song means to me! The first time I heard it, I got a knot in my throat and tears in my eyes! We had a cardinal (which was a bad thing but we did not know any better) when I was a young girl (he died two days after my grandmother whom he loved- I was almost 15) so I grew up hearing his song and, when I heard this one singing, it brought back so many memories...(I adored my grand-mother!) I even named this one in honor of the one we had back then: Copetin (small crest), the hen's name is China (the gaucho's lady was called 'china' so this is a reference to my country, too)