Selling birds

[Sally]

Someone recently asked me how I sell my birds. Well, the truth is, I never had so many birds before! I used to raise a few Zebras and Societies, and I sold them to a local feed store for anywhere from $3 to $5 each. This feed store is not interested in the more expensive finches at all, they say there is not a market for them.

For the more expensive finches, a lot of them are sold thru bird marts and fairs, swapped with other breeders, or posted on some of the online sites for selling finches.

When I decided to go all out and try breeding on a bigger scale, I started with Stars, then Gouldians, then got into waxbills, and the waxbills really intrigue me. I believe there is a market out there for waxbills, but even if there wasn't, I would keep them.

But this is something each one of us has to think about before we breed our birds. Craigslist and Petfinder.com always have Zebras and Societies for adoption--sometimes I see the same birds posted over and over. So before breeding birds, try to decide what you will do with them once the two pairs have multiplied to 20-30 birds. You will need more cages, you may have to separate juvies by sex (my Star juvie boys are flirting with their sisters), they all really shouldn't be sold till they've gone thru their juvie molt. You are looking at a commitment of time and money, not to mention the space all those cages take up!

There is nothing wrong with keeping finches and NOT breeding them. But if you are fascinated with the breeding end of it, as I am, then go for it, just do a little homework before things get out of control.

And I will be at the Ft. Worth Bird Mart in September as a vendor! It would be nice to make a few $$ to pay for all this bird seed, but knowing me, I will just come home with more birds!

[dfcauley]

Yeah Sally, good luck at the bird mart. I wish I lived close and I would come see you!
I am SURE you will come home with more birds but I hope you all make some $$.
This is exactually what I do with my babies. I either take them to the bird mart (monthly) if I have some avilable or trade them. I try to never get too many. Although at the moment they are fleding daily!

[fairestfinches]

Sally,

LOL! Seems like we always end up coming home with new birds when we set up as vendors at bird fairs. Usually we end up finding waxbills that we still need to add to our set up to have enough blood lines going. Speaking of waxbills and bloodlines. . . How are those Strawberry chicks doing?

Sean

[Sally]

Hi, Sean - the Strawberries are doing great! I did lose one in this last clutch of five, it was the last to hatch out and was so incredibly tiny, I think it might have gotten squashed by the Societies. But I have 8 babies from this one pair A, 4 fledglings and 4 nestlings, and I have the 1 baby from my other pair B, which is a juvie or young adult actually, and I know he is a male, he is singing a lot! And I am just seeing a few red feathers coming in around the face of the male from pair B, so we might be getting ready for round two with that pair. Isn't it funny that my two pairs of Strawberries are on opposite breeding cycles?

I will be keeping my fingers crossed for breeding success with your new Strawberries. One of these days, we will be able to do some swapping of bloodlines!

[hfentj]

Sally have you taken a pair of zebras to Joshua feed store, the female is white and the male is the normal but they both are a good size. They were sitting on the floor in the store in a breeder cage. This has been a few months back. The female is solid white, I'm sure as many birds you have it might be hard to remember. But, if so, I have them. It just hit after I read your message to Sean. These two are so much bigger and healthy then the four I started with. I thought I hit a gold mine when I saw this pair.

[fairestfinches]

Sally,

That is great news on your over all success!

Keep us posted. We were able to pick up two pairs and an extra male. I lost one hen about a two weeks ago. She showed no signs of stress or illness so we're not sure what the cause was. May have been old age or a night fright. We have no idea how old the hen was so there is no way to be certain. We may have located a couple of more hens so we may have three pairs to try and breed. We'll let you know how updates if we have any luck.

Sean

[Sally]

Sally have you taken a pair of zebras to Joshua feed store, the female is white and the male is the normal but they both are a good size. They were sitting on the floor in the store in a breeder cage. This has been a few months back. The female is solid white, I'm sure as many birds you have it might be hard to remember. But, if so, I have them. It just hit after I read your message to Sean. These two are so much bigger and healthy then the four I started with. I thought I hit a gold mine when I saw this pair.

No, that wasn't me. I don't know who supplies them, I asked if they would buy some when I first started with the Zebras (and quickly had too many), and they said they had a supplier already. I took mine to Russell Feed in Benbrook. I also sold some to Marshall Grain in Ft. Worth. The last Zebras I had I swapped for Societies from a lady that does cockatiel rescues (and then the Societies turned out to be a male Bronze-winged Mannikin, Society hen, and their 2 hybrid babies).

[hfentj]

The two pair of finches I started with come from neglect so they were ragged and these two that I got from the feed store are big. The male is the typical zebra and the female is all white and does not have the tear drop. They were just pretty and I thought I landed a goldmine for $7 each. Also I bought three socitey at the Bird Mart, Is there anyway to figure out by watching which one is female. Thxs for any info. Heidi

[Sally]

Hi, Heidi - there is no way to visually sex Societies, which is the only drawback they have. Only males sing, so if you can take them one at a time and place them in another cage, preferably out of sight but not sound, and see if any of them sing. You can't mistake their singing, they stand up tall, puff out their little chests, and squeak away. Most Society males will sing a lot, but sometimes you can have two males, one is dominant, and the other just doesn't sing. Hens will chirp but not sing. Of course, eggs are a dead giveaway that you have a hen, but who gets to see them actually laying an egg? So even if you have an egg, you don't know who's responsible.

[hfentj]

Hi, Heidi - there is no way to visually sex Societies, which is the only drawback they have. Only males sing, so if you can take them one at a time and place them in another cage, preferably out of sight but not sound, and see if any of them sing. You can't mistake their singing, they stand up tall, puff out their little chests, and squeak away. Most Society males will sing a lot, but sometimes you can have two males, one is dominant, and the other just doesn't sing. Hens will chirp but not sing. Of course, eggs are a dead giveaway that you have a hen, but who gets to see them actually laying an egg? So even if you have an egg, you don't know who's responsible.

Thank you for the info, also, if they have paired , two out of the three, then the odds might be good then too?

[Sally]

Not necessarily. Societies are such social birds, they will buddy up with opposite sex, same sex, other species--they just want a friend!