FINCHforum

Just two weeks ago yesterday I bought a pair of Star finches from a chain pet store. After getting them home and into the cage the male looked very shocked and stayed on the cage bottom. I put a heat lamp near him to try and help but he died within about 1 1/2 hours of getting him home anyways. I took him back and they were very good about refunding my money on him and said I could return the female also then if I wanted to. I decided to keep the female and got another male as a mate for her a week ago from a different store in the same chain. I have had their cages sitting near each other since then. I woke up early this morning hearing a finch flying around it its cage before dawn. I had been hearing a finch fly around a little about every night for the past week but thought it was most likely the new male Star finch that I had bought and had put a night light near their cages early in the week because of that. I also had two zebra's nearby in another cage so was not sure who is was though as it was dimly lit and I did not want to disturb them at night. When I got up when I heard this today, to see who was making the noise since it was more than I had heard before, I found the little Star female dead on the bottom of her cage. I picked her up and she was limp and dead. My 14 day guarantee from the pet store where I bought her ended yesterday too. I had thought she looked a bit fluffed on the perch and maybe unwell a few days ago and then after checking her more decided that she did look fine though. I am sad and so disappointed to think that I lost both the original male and now female within 2 weeks. I have had 4 zebra finches for about 5 years and a male gouldian for a year and they are all going strong. I sure don't know what went so wrong with this pair!

I would still take the finch back to the store,maybe they will still take care of it ,since you have had so much trouble with the pair that you bought from them worth a try anyway. They might give you some kind of credit or somthing,good luck

I'm so sorry to hear you've now lost the female Star too! How awful for you. I really hope it's nothing contagious and can only stress the importance of quarantining all new birds separately (in a different room) from all others already in the home. Again I'm sorry Anne, I don't know what to say.

I'm sorry.

Today I did call the store to talk to the manager and let them know what had happened with the female dying very early this morning - just the next day after the guarantee expired. They were very nice about it and told me to bring the bird in and did refund my money on her in full! They certainly did have excellent customer service at the store I purchased them from. Thank you for your suggestion to do so and everyones thoughtful replies also.

I'm very glad you got your refund from that store - honestly, I hope you don't buy (at least Star finches) from them again if you have other sources available. Best wishes.

I am happy to hear that the store was able to take care of you. I am sure in a situation like that, where the male already expired, they would have had no reason to give you a hassle about the female dying. While I agree about using caution when purchasing from a chain store, I also know that in some cases, you just get bad batches of animals in. Where I work, we had nearly all of our fish order die for two weeks in a row. When we contacted the corporate office about it, they said something must be wrong with our system, but we had already checked it and the system was more than stable. When other stores in our district began to complain about the same thing, we haven't had a problem sense. I guess maybe the corp office got a little stricter on where they got fish from. As for birds, we get them in all the time and very rarely loose any (from zeb's and societies all the way up to cockatiels and sun conures).

I for one don't know where to buy birds from ,I have bought three different finch's from bird shows with bad results from breeders ,I bought one pair that where male and female[both male one died two weeks later] I talked to them at the next show they couldn't care less,another show I bought a gouldians,hen she died 10 days later called breeder left three messages has never returned my calls
At least the chain store has a guarantee. If you know the breeder personally that the best way to go

I agree with B Camp, buying from a breeder can be a toss up, unless you know them or they have a really good reputation to protect. I don't like buying my birds from an unknown source (such as the ones you get from a chain store) but at least you get a guarantee.