FINCHforum

After church I went to the monthly bird fair in Madison; was quite dissapointed at lack of vendors, but did buy bird seed & millet spray. Talked to a vendor who has a pet store in Racine about WAXBILLS. He said 75 percent of them are "wild caught". Said most of them come now from Puerto Rico; where the practice is to let them loose to acclimate & breed & then catch them to sell.
He said they live about 3 years.
He said few people breed them domestically, but that there might be some at the upcoming Racine Bird Fair for about $93 a pair.

Since I was on the east side of Madison I thought I'd check out the PetSmart there. (the one on my side of town had Orange Cheek Waxbills which had peeked my interest, but they looked scruffy). Well, this PetSmart had a pair & they looked STUPENDOUS. So I bought them. $35 each.....$75 for the pair including tax. Have no idea of their age, sex, or whether they are African or Puerto Rican, but I love them to bits. The girl at this PetSmart said all their birds are from a facility called Rainbow in Miami.

Well sorry about the mart, but congrats on the new birds! pictures???

finchandlovebird wrote:After church I went to the monthly bird fair in Madison; was quite dissapointed at lack of vendors, but did buy bird seed & millet spray. Talked to a vendor who has a pet store in Racine about WAXBILLS. He said 75 percent of them are "wild caught". Said most of them come now from Puerto Rico; where the practice is to let them loose to acclimate & breed & then catch them to sell.
He said they live about 3 years.
He said few people breed them domestically, but that there might be some at the upcoming Racine Bird Fair for about $93 a pair.

Since I was on the east side of Madison I thought I'd check out the PetSmart there. (the one on my side of town had Orange Cheek Waxbills which had peeked my interest, but they looked scruffy). Well, this PetSmart had a pair & they looked STUPENDOUS. So I bought them. $35 each.....$75 for the pair including tax. Have no idea of their age, sex, or whether they are African or Puerto Rican, but I love them to bits. The girl at this PetSmart said all their birds are from a facility called Rainbow in Miami.

Orange Cheek Waxbills originate from Africa. Check out the finch info center. http://www.finchinfo.com/birds/finches/ ... axbill.php

like Portugal and a few other countries , even Puerto Rico imports waxbills , release them and after a few years they catch and export them !! like we all know it can and will destroy the native species and i am still surprised goverments accept it

next addy is waxbills in puerto rico :
http://alfredocolon.zenfolio.com/p668116072
http://www.avianweb.com/blackrumpedwaxbills.html
http://www.aosbirds.org/prbba/SpeciesORAW.html

have fun

congrats on the pair but just a word about rainbow exotics, if you look up a video of a undercover peta personal you will see how absolutely disgusting their practices are

I was going to also comment on rainbow, but didn't know if itn would cause debate. Yes, they are horrible, discusting, they kill pets who can't breed or be sold. Sad, but true.

DanteD716 wrote:I was going to also comment on rainbow, but didn't know if itn would cause debate. Yes, they are horrible, discusting, they kill pets who can't breed or be sold. Sad, but true.

dante i think people have the right to know about this disgusting place. i dont see why anyone would get offended over something like this and even if they did people need to know