Flea Markets

[Khaiqha]

So I went to my first flea market that sold animals today...and I wanted to punch so many people.

It's quite obvious how no one cared about the fact that these were living creatures. A mom bought her kid two budgies and a rediculously small cage, and said that if these died she would buy him another one. The way she said it was so casual, as if the birds were toys that break. Considering that the budgies were $5 each, I can kind of see how she had such a low investment in her purchase. Still made me angry though.

Another lady asked, "What do I feed it? Do I refill the bowl if it's empty? Does it always have to water? Okay, I'll take one then." She then told the bird that it was going to a good place. I highly doubted
that it was.

Then there were the breeders. I saw a 2' cube crammed with so many budgies they had to sit on top of one another. About half of all birds I saw had injuries or open wounds. Macaws let people pet them, not because they were tame, but because they were too sick to move. Birds were trapped being exposed to the sun. A friggin breeder sold a cockatiel still on formula to someone who didn't even know what type of bird it was.

There was one breeder who didn't over crowd cages. She had her birds indoors with full spectrum lighting. I might have liked her, except she sold birds to people who didn't even know what type of bird it was they're buying.

It was an utterly depressing day. I was semi-excited to see species I've never seen in person before. I saw my first galah, Senegal, pentagonian conure, nanday conure and hahn's macaw. The galah was so malnurished that its pink was a more off white. The Senegal was obese. The pentagonian and nanday had open gashes on their wings. The hahn's macaw was so young half its feathers were still pins, and it was already being sold.

[liz]

Just makes you want to throw up on those people doesn't it?

[rebeccaturpeinen]

Im so glad there are rules preventing these sort of markets here in Denmark..... stores can sell birds and small animals like rabbits but they need a animal trained caretaker (as in 2 year schooling) employed if they want to keep animals. Dogs and cats can not be sold in stores.

We do have bird markets and I was horrified at what I saw but it wasnt naerly as bad as what you describe.

I dont understand how people can just simply not care....

[animal_lover]

That is soooo heartbreaking!! Is it ignorance? Total stupidity or just evil?

Animal lover

[Wrong Bird Lady]

Both our cockatiels came from animal souqs (markets)...it was hard not to walk out with half the stock
Some were better than others but anything like that in the UK would be shut down...
Tenchi is ok but turns out Ryo was more under weight than we realized after she's started letting us handle us more. Her general health, feather condition, alertness etc has been improving so we have ordered some harrisons (better quality than what we were using before) and just keeping a close eye on her for now.