Desperately seeking owl finches!

OwlFinch · Post by **OwlFinch** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 5:03 pm

Hi there!

My boyfriend and I are living in Astoria, NY and we have been researching the prospect of owning some finches for the the last couple years! We have a big, new apt and we are finally ready to welcome some finches in but the only problem is that it is so darn hard to find owl finches on the East Coast and we WON'T ship birds because it is too dangerous for them. We have only seen one owl finch in person, which was a small female at 'Bird's Plus' near Santa Monica in LA, but since we feel that we should buy them in pairs - we did not 'fly' home with her after our trip. Can anyone offer any advice on where we should go to find a pair of owls for our happy NYC home?

Thanks for your help! peep peep! sara

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 6:54 am

Owls are hard to find right now... and they are expensive! I don't live in NY, so I don't know what to tell you. I would browse for local breeders...

http://www.birdsnways.com/birds/bradn.htm

That is a website for breeders in states... just scroll down to New York

You could try petsmart, sometimes they have owl finches. Look on craiglists:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/

I don't know exactly where in New York Astoria is... and don't know how far you're willing to drive. I have owl finches, but I'm here in Colorado.

Also try the classifieds of your local paper. A lot of times people will advertise finches there.

Google breeders in New York. It can be hard to find finches sometimes, especially when you are looking for certain kinds. I know there are a lot of breeders that will ship... shipping can be fine too

Post by **Sally** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 10:45 am

Check out these two sites--you can post what you are looking for and where you are located:

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/Finc ... _or_Trade/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/finc ... ries4sale/

kittani79 · Post by **kittani79** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 12:01 pm

Depending on how friendly your local petsmart pet care manager is, he or she may be willing to order owl finches for you. They are available almost all the time to order.

gouldy · Post by **gouldy** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 6:48 pm

owl finches are "hard to find" birds.I don't think you can order them from Petsmart anymore.Try www.birdbreeders.com so you might be lucky.I'll have some but I'm in Alexandria Virginia

kiwi & mango · Post by **kiwi & mango** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:35 pm

I am in Ontario and all the petsmarts and even the local pet store that I go for other pet supplies had two sets in there today. The were a little more then I thought they would be. If I remember right I think there were 250.00 Canadian for the pair.

At pet smart I think they were the same price

kittani79 · Post by **kittani79** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:59 pm

Well... I saw them on the order form like 2 weeks ago. So they are out there.

blakbyrd · Post by **blakbyrd** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 10:16 am

After reading about the lack of availability (or apparent lack of) owl finches, I was surprised to find a PetSmart that had some for sale. Although a bit far from NY, the one in Lynchburg, VA has at least 2 of them as of yesterday ($99.95 each though). They also had some nice busy little star finches too.

I would call local PetSmarts and see what they have if you havent already. I went through the three in my area and they all had different types available and in different quantities. So, don't expect them all to have the same thing, as they don't. I would look as far away as you are willing to drive and see what they happen to have, although so far, between the three near me, I havent been too thrilled with the way they kept them, but for the most part, all but one seemed fully healthy (aside from one who had feather plucked due to mixing with the wrong birds).

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 5:58 am

There are a million petsmarts here in Colorado, and every one of them has different stock of finches. In my big aviary, I have a lot of singles, so when I happened to go to a petsmart (which by the way I never go to) I saw one owl finch for sale. I bought him... and he is a him! $100 though... which is sooooooo pricey. They weren't always that much;. Near the beginning of this year (when I thought I was done with finches) I sold a pair of owls to a guy for $100 for the pair! I was sooo mad, plus they were the pair that my ex-fiance bought me for Valentines Day

I even called the guy later and asked if I could buy them back, and he said no. Oh well

blue28570 · Post by **blue28570** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 11:11 am

When I went to buy my new cage, I asked about ordering a pair. They said they would if I prepaid. And they were 160.00 per bird.

blakbyrd · Post by **blakbyrd** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 12:29 pm

To mee te prices seem to be a bit high, although I really dont know the costs much. If they are gettin ghard for you to find and you have a place that has or can get them, then the price may just have to be what you have to pay, if you want something now or soon, and do not want to order them yourself from a breeder. If you dont ming waiting to find the right deal then that may be your best bet.

I have seen in other places that people are having a hard time finding owl finches (maybe not all areas, but some, and you may just be on one of those areas). In which case, the price may very well have increased for them...I really dont know.

If I could have justified the cost I would have gotten the ones I did, but I drove out there for the goldfinches and didnt want to spend the extra $200 for the owl pair. They were quite tempting though

Good luck in finding some though.

kiwi & mango · Post by **kiwi & mango** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:24 pm

I was looking through some different sites and came across this. They are breeders and have pairs of owl Finches
http://www.exoticwings.com/

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 4:45 am

$60 per owl finch is a great price! I would do it for sure. They also have great prices on strawberries.

mickp · Post by **mickp** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 5:45 am

wow, I find it hard to believe that you have to pay so much for owl finches they are available here in australia from breeders for $25 each

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 6:21 am

Well I wonder which finches are expensive for you and cheap for us?