What should you do when you see sick pet shop birds?

[penelope's person]

Just curious what people do when they see sick or unhappy pet store parrots (or any animal). I'm wondering what recourse we have.

Should you talk to the employees or manager? E-mail the company? What if it appears to be habitual?

I'm curious because I went to the only pet store in my area (a large chain) and discovered that the Jardine parrot's beak was all torn up and his feathers were really ruffled, and a cockatiel's head was totally bald, just running around with the others. The employees look like they are teenagers and are usually just up front talking.

I did email the company, because I don't really feel that talking to the employees would do any good. Next time I'm in I am going to ask them what's wrong with the cockatiel....

Thoughts?

[TheNzJessie]

i tell them and if they dont do anything i ring the spca and they sort it out. i dont care what people think of me but if i see animals in bad living conditions or are sick and no vet treatment is being done i report it to the spca. its the law to provide clean living conditions and food and water to pets and if you neglect these laws the spca can step in and you can be convicted of animal cruelty

what a typical conversations i have had


HEY your animals is sick
employer 'no its not'
me: yes it is, if you cant see that you should not be working here
employer, how are you to know?
me: i have worked at pet stores and zoos with vets
what are you going to do?
ill call the spca
employer: no you wont

i usually find sick animals or poorly cared for animals in large chain pet stores or shopping mall pet stores who employ people who cant tell a cat from a dog

as im only 17 people dont take me seriously but my brain has a lot of info

[Kim S]

Whatever you do, dont take them home. It would be better for the birds, but you have no idea what kind of troubles youll be taking home.

[Yorkochanie]

Actually, in Turkey, %90 of the pet stores have at least one sick animal. As we don't have any bird breeders, we have to buy our birds from pet stores. I usually buy old rehomes as we have no pet rescue organisations. Yaprak and Baby was the first ones I bought as babys.

My first Timneh's owner was moving to another country and he wasn't able to take his lovely parrot with him because of the isolation. He gave his bird to a pet store to sell him a family. So, we bought him.

A month after his death, I bought JoJo who WAS sick! He was surely going to die in a couple days, but he was soo cute, soo small that I could'nt leave him at the pet store to throw him into a rubbish bin when he died. The third day after I bought him, JoJo died. He died happily, he was loved. This was the death I wanted for JoJo. This was why I bought him, and I never regret buying him. If I could, I would do anything to make that pet store closed, but our government is the one who kills animals, so no one was going to listen me. If they was dogs or cats, maybe. But a bird? No. Yes, there is animal rights on our law, but our own government breaks it. And, yes, I hate my country for that. Animal Rights Defenders including me, working on it but there is no success for now. :S

[lzver]

I have been in this situation and I did notify staff at the store.

I visit a chain pet store on a fairly regular basis because they are close to work. They had just gotten a little baby Senegal in the store a few days earlier and when I first saw him he had a broken nail and was bleeding - there were quite a few drops of blood around the cage. I brought this to their attention and they did look after it. When I was back in a few days later he was doing fine.

If it wasn't for the $900 price tag, I would have bought him on the spot.

[notscaredtodance]

The main thing is to be consistent. If it's not too much trouble, try going back the next day and the day after that. But tell them as soon as possible about the problem. Try to talk to a person about it who knows a lot about birds. Even people labelled "animal department" who work there, tend to have their areas of expertise. At my store, brandon knows the most about fish, caitlin knows the most about reptiles, and i know the most about small animals and birds. But we all know a fair amount. Still. If you told either of them it looked like the bird was plucking, they'd pull "stop plucking" spray off the shelf and hose down the bird

So ask the employee about birds first, ask questions you already know the answers to, and see if they know the answers, or if they're honest enough to say that they don't know. If they seem like someone competent, then address the issue of cruelty, but be careful about calling it cruel. People can take it the wrong way and think you're blaming them, personally.

So, in conclusion, pick out the most competent person, able to do something, tell them about the issue, go back for a few days to see if its being resolved. If nothing is being righted, call some type of organization- even a bird rescue group would help out.


Like one of the posts above me said, DO NOT BUY the bird. I see it first hand. If we buy reptiles and sell a lot, we buy more. If we buy reptiles and they dont sell at all, we don't buy those anymore. For every bird you "save" from a pet store you're ruining the lives of two more.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Decide how much of a stink you are willing to make. Personally, I think the most productive approach is to work on the store manager or owner. They may just be ignorant rather than deliberately uncaring. You can go to the authorities and/or local animal welfare groups, but unless the shop is motivated to take good care of their stock, the best that might happen is for them to get shut down and the animals confiscated, which also doesn't always turn out well.

If you can't get them to do better, don't patronize that store. Vote with your feet.

[Rue]

Yelling at the employees is useless. They have little or no say, are mostly young, don't have training, and are paid min. wage...don't expect too much.

Best thing you can do is politely tell the manager...then ask the manager for the name of his/her supervisor...and write a letter. Then something MAY get done.

Telling them you're going to sic the SPCA on them is useless. As long as the animals have food and water and access to medical care the SPCA can't do anything...nor do they have the facilities or the power to do more than they are...

[notscaredtodance]

I'm not sure about the manager thing at all. Managers are usually managers because they handle money and responsibilities well, and make a lot of profit. All 5 of the managers I've had at the pet store know ZIP about animals, or their knowledge is focused on dogs and cats. We had a russian tortoise that was getting soft shell, and when someone went to the manager about it, he said "put it in the back room" Which is fine to do with hamsters that have wet tail and you need to separate out anyways, but it had a calcium nd vitamin d3 deficiency, which meant its uvb light needed upped, and it needed a phosphorus soak. Not to be put in a drafty back room with no heat or humidity available.

Managers care about pleasing people, in the least costly way. We've never had a sick bird, but I'd not be surprised if kurt told me to put a bird cage in a back room where bleach fumes are around all the time, and think nothing of it. Which is why I said to go back to the store and make sure they've followed through. People who work at large chain petstores have to perfect the art of lying, because if they were honest about how they took care of their animals, and where they got the animals from, no one would shop there.

[penelope's person]

Here is the reply I received today.

Thank you for emailing us your concerns. I can assure you the health and well being of all of our animals are of our utmost main priority.
I have the manager so and so [removed for privacy] looking at all of the cockatiels now, as we did recently receive some new arrivals to make sure there are none with missing feathers.
The Jardine, being one of the focal animals in our store as she is really
tame and has lots of admirer's that come in daily to play looks great. She possibly could be going through a light molt however has no missing
feathers. Her beak is a little long and we will schedule a trim for her.
All of our parrots are fed Tropimix, which is a seed and pellet mix with
Tropican food pellets. Feel free to contact the store manager, or identify any concerns when you are at the store directly to him, I am sure he will be more than helpful.
Regards,

They actually aren't feeding them tropimix, but the cheaper cockatiel seed. I checked. Tropimix is pretty expensive (16 bucks a package vs. 7 bucks for the cockatiel seed) The Jardine's beak looked a mess. However, I am glad to see they are responding to the situation.

Edited to add: ACTUALLY I just remembered the manager was the one who sold me my lovie, and I told him that I wanted what the lovebird was already eating, plus pellets...and he handed me the bag of cheap seed. So I know for certain not all the parrots are eating pellets! (aside from the fact that I have eyes)

I actually took a look at my spca's mandate online and it appears they only investigate home-based complaints. I know for sure they are not set up for birds.

Yeah, I definitely would never buy a sick bird. It just doesn't make any sense, at pet store prices. Let them eat the profit, maybe then they'll learn. I paid 175 bucks for my seagreen lovie. I could never ever afford a Jardine there!

Ugh...it's all so sad!