File :-(, x, )
wtf? Anonymous
Ok so I've got to ask why is there a no touching the birds policy at pet co and some other larger commercial stores?

If i got into your business wanting to buy a bird (one of these guys <-----) I'm not going to throw down 600 bones for the bird then another couple hundred for a cage and other accessories to not know how the bird handles.

wtf pet co wtf???
>> Anonymous
Unlike dogs, birds don't like to be touched/petted
also they're scared
>> Anonymous
Okay, so let's say a dumb shit walks into Pet Co. They want to buy a two hundred dollar parrot. They ask to hold it, get bitten and scratched, and the bird escapes outside and flies away.

By all rights, Pet Co should be able to charge the dumb shit for the expensive bird they let go, but more than likely the dumb shit goes charging off to court that it was hurt in their store and sues for something ridiculous like 50,000 bucks.

Etc etc, no touching the birds. If you want one, you'll have to buy it and then train it into trusting you and behaving well. If you don't have the time or patience for that? Don't buy a bird.
>> Anonymous
>>312193
Ehh, my local PetCo keeps their birds in a locked room
>> Anonymous
>>312172
at my store we didn't let people touch the birds because one was a HOMICIDAL BITER. I loved her and she loved me and she STILL bit the shit out of me whenever she was scared or just annoyed because I had to stop dicking around with her and get some work done. At some point I just came to terms with the fact that if I wanted to hold her she was going to mash the crap out of my fingers.
However, when the couple with the the fat annoying little brat walks towards the bird room and I say "Don't put your fingers in any of the cages, because the birds bite! I'm serious, she'll look like she wants it just to lure you in so that she can bite you!" And they nod, and smile and walk in. Then about 5 minutes later I see them leave the bird room, the little shit clutching his paw and bawwwing, and I look at the parents like I TOLD YOU SO!!!
Yeah, we just say don't touch the goddamn birds
>> Anonymous
>>312201
TELL ME MORE STORIES MOMMY
>> Anonymous
>>312203
should i tell the one about the bird biting me and me almost snapping and crushing the bastard to death, or the one about the ferrets crawling down inside my shirt and crapping?
>> Anonymous
>>312205
>>312205
BOTH.
ALL OF YOUR PETCO STORIES
>> Anonymous
>>312207
this.

i've always wanted to know what it'slike towork at a pet store.
>> How did you know I work at Petco? Anonymous
>>312207
There is the one bird I mentioned who bites everyone, including me. While I was earning her trust their was a period where she bit me constantly. At first I was afraid of her and she took advantage of me. She would bend over and look at me like she wanted me to pet her, so I would reach through the bars and pet her for a second or two and then she would YARRR! get me. It sucked but I was slowly getting over it until she was not biting me so hard. Then one day after the store had closed I went and opened her cage and tried to take her out. She was excited but apprehensive and wanted to come out, so i put my hand at the entrance to her cage and said "Up!" She looked at me and climbed out onto my hand
And clamped down like a vise on my thumb. Pretty soon I was trying to shake her off into her cage and yelling. She was nailing me everywhere and when I finally managed to shove her off and slam her cage I looked at my hand. It was one huge bloody swollen mass. She had gotten my thumb, forefinger, middle finger and palm over and over. At that point I started yelling and waving my arms. "How DARE that goddamn BITCH!" I was ready to put on the leather glove and crush her to death.
>> Anonymous
>>312224
And then I ran out of the room before I did anything stupid.

I did several things very very wrong:
I should have never put my hand in her cage - it was her space and she didn't trust me, no wonder she was going to defend it.
She didn't like to be touched by men (particularly black men - we suspect she may have been abused at another store before she came live with us.)
She had a bad sense of balance and I should have let her use my arm rather than just one finger
The thing about birds is that they are not like people - they do not respond well to physical discipline. The only way to get a bird to like you is to get it to trust you, and the only way to do that is to show it that you are not afraid.
>> Anonymous
>>312172

I work at a PetSmart and we have a Sun Conure in our store right now. (our second one in the past three months) Both birds were/are tame and LOVE attention. We work with them a lot to get them comfortable with human contact- the first one we got would sit on your shoulder and preen you and climb into our shirts and cuddle while we worked. The newer one doesn't get as much interaction since we have a new manager who's stricter about that stuff.

I can understand not letting people touch parakeets/doves/finches since they're mean motherfuckers, but if someone walked into our store and was interested in Mr. Magoo (the old one was named Louie) we'd let them hang out with him for as long as they wanted.
>> Anonymous
>>312231
that's awesome. the sun conures we have had at work are always really sweet and very cuddly. we had the one named Sunny that was so sweet that when she pooped off your shoulder, she would aim away from your body and spray all over the floor so she wouldn't get her friend messy
d'awwww
>> Anonymous
How sociable/bitey/affectionate are lovebirds? Do they like or dislike touch?
>> Anonymous
>>312231
what petsmart do you work at?
>> Anonymous
>>312253
It completely depends on the bird. You can't really steryotype a kind of parrot as to whether its loud, bites, likes attention, etc. Any bird will come around if it trusts you, you just gotta gain that trust, and that can take a long time, depending on the bird.
>> 312231
>>312272

Hyannis, MA
>> Anonymous
>>312295
Hipster.
>> Anonymous
>>312185
This is crap every bird I've ever owned has loved to get rubs on the neck and cheeks.

>>312193
Number one birds are kept in a separate section enclosed in glass so no flying out of the store. Number two birds have different personalities and I don't know how they have been treated so having a chance to see if they are friendly and sociable is important. Number three I always make time for my pets and if I have to take on the responsibility for a bird or any other animal that has been treated poorly or has some sort of problem I have the right to know.

>>312201
As for homicidal birds who love to bite and are mean my suggestion to your store is to take them to a separate area of the store try to retrain the birds behavior before you put the bird up for sale. This is how birds get a bad rap and become the poor critters that are mistreated and then dumped.
>> 312231
>>312298

Quoi?
>> Anonymous
>>312299
>As for homicidal birds
that's just what I did. I have spent this past summer retraining her and she is much nicer now. It's a big improvement. She is still wary around certain people, but she is a-OK with me and my manager.
>so having a chance to see if they are friendly and sociable is important
I agree, but we have to screen people to try and avoid the fuckers I mentioned. Serious bird people are always easy to recognize (usually from the bird poop on their clothes) and we give them our full attention and access to the birds.
>> Anonymous
>>312301
I don't generally walk around with bird shit on my clothing :P
>> Anonymous
>>312303
I lol'd
I mean that bird people are obvious to spot because they know what the heck they're talking about
>> Anonymous
>>312304
See funny thing is these assholes didn't give a shit 0 touching the birds. The only reason I could think they would do this is so they can pawn off the birds on some poor unsuspecting idiot who had the money to shell out.
>> Anonymous
I don't understand why anyone would buy a parrot from one of those big-box middleman stores when avian specialty stores and breeders have hand-fed weanlings that cost less.
>> Anonymous
>>312312
i think it's about convenience. we rarely sell a single large bird so i dunno, lol
the specialty stores also treat them better. I really wish we had more time for the little bastards but there are a lot of animals to take care of
>> Anonymous
>>312312
I am leaning towards that myself got a few places I want to check out.
>> Anonymous
>>312253
lovebirds have a tendency to get really cage aggressive.
>> Anonymous
THEY DONT WANT YOU TOUCHING ANYMORE COCKS, FAGGOT
>> Anonymous
I work at a PETCO and we'll let you handle the larger parrots all day long. their wings are clipped so they aren't gonna fly anywhere. and most of them we hand raise (get them in unweaned and hand feed them for a few weeks) so they are very sociable and love attention. the smaller birds are kinda off limits (although occasionally we'll get a parakeet out of a group that also likes to be handled)
>> Anonymous
psittacosis

it'll fuck you up, and lots of pet store birds have it

get a bird from a rescue, or if you cba to go through the screening process, a breeder. Pet store birds are treated like shit a lot of the time and many of them never really recover.
>> Anonymous
>>312253
get a young one that's curious and comes to the cage door when it opens. i chose my guy because he was the only one of his bunch who would eagerly hop on my hand and climb up onto my shoulder. this was my first time ever seeing them, so i assumed he just had a friendly personality. and i was right - to this day, 9 years later, he loves me to death. he's very slow to warm up to others, though, but he will as long as you're not jumpy or aggressive or a complete faggot.
>> Anonymous
>>312496
Was also thinking about this too. Humane society gets birds in every so often and they are good about letting you handle them and get to know them before you adopt.
>> Anonymous
>>312534
People will dump just about *any* kind of living thing in shelters. Well, guess it's better than just let them loose in the streets, as many will do.
>> Anonymous
>>312535
Most of my critters have come from shelters or were rescues from abusive homes.
>> Anonymous
the birds are fucking biters, that's fucking why, asscock.
>> Anonymous
>>312538
Mine, too. Except for my first bunny, who came from a garage sale. Three came from rescues and from a family who was dumping him and another from a guy who was about to have him killed because he didn't want to treat him.
>> Anonymous
believe me you DONT want to buy a sun conure cause they are very noisy, and have the worst high pitch screech you will ever hear. my ears practically bleed when chipper (my bird) starts to go off.
>> Anonymous
>>312554
I know they are insanely loud but it doesn't bother me lol at one point I had 14 birds have learned to deal with the massive amount of squawking
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
any bird can be trained to scream less.

though if you want something hilarious and entertaining in a conure-sized package, Caiques are a great, way-less-screamy option.
>> Anonymous
Dont buy a bird from Petco. Jesus Christ, find a local breeder and get yourself a handfed for fuck sake.
>> Anonymous
i work at petcetera, and we dont carry a lot of birds there, but we do enforce that no one can handle them cause we already have two finches out and we can't catch 'em, thanks to dumb kids opening cages. one's been out since last november D:
>> Anonymous
do stores not know about clipping birds wings? i work in a big bird store where we handle birds from $12-$25 000 and we encurage people to play with the birds as long as we know the bird has a good temperment and we're there to judge how the birds acting. we trim our parrots wings so we can take them out and socialize them. If they dont get handled by people are used to new people around. they get mean and scared and bite. so anywhere that refuses to take a bird out for you isnt a place you want to get one from.
>> Anonymous
i would only buy birds from a pet store if i had a large avairy to set em free in. they dont want to be handled and are too jumpy, i couldnt leave the thing ina cage and its hell if you take it out. get hand raised/fed local breeder birds. i have an albino cockatiel that will kiss your hand as you scratch her head :3
>> Enjoy Your Bleeding Eardrums Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
I haven't read the other posts because there are too many of them so sorry if this is covered already:

I'm pretty sure it's a Sun Coneur from the looks and let me give you some warning. Once they get to be a little older, they will bloody your eardrums every 5 minutes with the LOUDEST screech you've ever heard in your life. How such a small animal can literally have me covering my ears in horror is amazing.

From talking to others, they pretty much all have a high chance of being screechers.

My sister used to have one, which is how I know this. She traded him in because she couldn't take the sounds and got two Princess of Wales Parakeets. (They're called parakeets, but they're actually parrots. *shrug* See picture.)

Not loud at all, they're very loving to her kids, and their chirp is sedated and calming.