FINCHforum

Hello Folks,

This thread ties in to another thread called "Disgraceful".

I started haggling with this particular chap who wanted a $150.00 for 7 Zebra Finches in a filthy little cage on kijiji.
It sort of started as a joke, to see if I could talk down his crazy price.

I offered "$50.00" for the poor little birdies minus the filthy little cage, and the battle lines were drawn. Back and forth we battled through emails as I stuck to my guns not budging a penny.

Finally he said he "could do $60.00". I didn't respond for quite a while, until he emailed me back, to see if I was still interested (?)

I responded by saying "I could do $40.00"

The answer came back very quickly indeed... "But you said $50.00".

I retorted with "So are you interested in $50.00."

"Yes, okay $50.00 for the 7 birds."

I got to his house today, and was rather surprised to see a great big house in an expensive neighbourhood.

With my son waiting outside, I knocked on the door, and was ushered into a tiny office space with a filthy cage on the floor with nothing much else in there.

I asked him if he was good at catching birds, and he said no.

From that I gathered that I was to catch the birds myself while the cage was sitting on the floor. I quickly disabused him of that idea, and he brought in two big suitcases, piling them one on top of the other and haphazardly poking the cage on top of them. Then he promptly left the room, closing the door behind him to go and have a meal with his family.

I looked at these pathetic unwanted little creatures in that incredibly filthy cage, with no food, just 3 very dirty water dishes with disghusting water in them, and just shook my head.

Pulling my sleeves up, I set to work.
Within five minutes, I had 6 birds in my transport cage, with one escapee on the window sill. I just reached over and grabbed her. These birds hardly know how to fly....

I left the filthy cage in the little room, had to grab one of the kids to get his dad, paid the man his $50.00 bucks and left the fancy house, still shaking my head.

Why do people get birds?

lovezebs

I'm reading this after wiping down 3 double flights, 3 breeding cages, 2 society flights, Midget & Buttercup's modest abode AND the Java flight. Replacing substrate. Cleaning out an ocean of feed dishes, replenishing fresh millets.

Then vacuuming myself into a backache. Four HOURS of work!!

And this man could not take care of one little cage.

I think the fact that he seems to have plenty of $$ and he's freaking out over $10 was laughable.

My dear friend, it's obvious $ can't buy a decent heart.

I'm glad you were able to rescue them

Those are lucky birds, with the scenario you have described they would starve to death in a few days.

Great you rescued those birds. I'd say the birds belonged to the kids and the kids forget about them while playing Xbox

Babs

He seemed like a decent enough Persian fellow, just didn't give a crap about the birds.

I just tried out my new Mother's day Shop Vac, and it works great. You know there are ways of sitting down and vacuuming under things, lol. Speaking from experience

Ricardo Ronsini

They appear to be fairly young birds, and in ok shape, but I couldn't believe that there was no food in the cage, and the cage, oh that cage.... it looked like it hadn't been cleaned or the paper changed in months.

Maybe they ran out of food, and decided that there was no sense buying more seeing as they were selling them anyway, I honestly don't know, but I just felt sorry for them, and I'm glad I got them out of there.

GouldianGuy

You might be right about the kids, but I think they had them for a while and were breeding them.

I did ask him if they were related and he said yea, so my assumption would be, that they kept getting rid of the older birds, and keeping the youngsters to breed and sell. Sort of like a birdy puppy mill thing .

Those birds might be several generations in bred for all I know.

lovezebs crappy deal... at least you can outbreed them to yours?!

GouldianGuy

That's what I was thinking too, but for now they are just settling in.

Poor things, they don't seem to know what to do with the space of a bigger flight. They just sit there kinda clumped together.

They are nice looking birds

Thank god they found a nice new mum

Dramoth

Thank you Mark.

I think they'll be happy here, once they get over the shock of the move, learn to fly again, and start exploring their surroundings a bit.

I know they'll come around soon enough, after all they are Zebras, and being shy is just not a part of their nature.

Yup, the 8 I got last week have all settled in with the others... some of the others are carrying permanent scars from those horrible Japanese quails.

I don't know why we got them in the first place. I think that mum thought that she was getting some of the smaller king quails.

Dramoth

Maybe try the tiny Button Quails, they seem to be very popular as Pets. Just ask MisterGribs, his wife and him absolutely adore their two babies which they've raised from eggs.

Regarding the Zebras:
The Magnificent Seven seem to be in better spirits this morning. They've discovered spray millet and are having a party. It's like: "Hey you guys, try this stuff, it tastes heavenly and there's loads of it down here."
The greens, they looked at like it was something from outer space and I can honestly say that I think they've never seen anything green before in their lives.

Haven't figured out the idea of a bath yet either, but it's only a matter of time. I'm looking forward to their first pool party (I think it will be a hoot ).

lovezebs

Yay! I'm so happy those little birds have found someone to take good care of them. Thank you for rescuing them from that tiny, filthy cage!

wonderful ! you got them! poor little guys. Now they will be happy . they will learn to fly once the muscles get stronger. I have taken in some like that. Give them a week or two. they will be flying around. Good for you! Most of all good for them!!!