Drewa
Meeting neighbors
I am hoping to get my first budgie/budgies in the next week and have bought a biggish cage, lots of toys, perches etc. and done a lot of research on-line so I as prepared as I can be. A friend of mine said she knew someone who had an aviary who might be helpful to meet and give me advice.
I went round this afternoon and whilst the woman was very kind and friendly I was a bit shocked by the conditions the birds are being kept in. I should explain that the woman's husband used to breed and show budgies so they were never really pets per se. He died suddenly 18 months ago and she has just kept the birds but not breeding or showing them. She doesn't mean to be unkind but she knows no better.
She has 18 hens in one cage and 40 cocks in another and neither cage has anything but dowel perches, water bottles and food bowls - no toys or enhancing material. They are all housed in a garage so cannot see the outside world. Two budgies were in individual cages, one (temporarily) because he wasn't well and the other because he had been born disabled - no feathers on his stomach and no wings. He can't live with the others as they will attack and kill him.
I, rightly or wrongly, feel it would have been best if he had died shortly after birth, but as they kept him alive he now lives in a small cage with nothing except two dowel perches, too far apart for him to hop from one to another, All he can do is walk up up and down one perch. He is 18 months old and will live in this way for the rest of his life. I couldn't help but suggest he could have some toys and she did say she would buy him one. Looking at this small helpless creature in such lamentable conditions broke my heart. It took all my strength not to walk out with him and bring him home for a better life. Could he survive coming from those conditions to somewhere he'll have everything a budgie could want or need or would it be too much of a shock for him?
#1
I went round this afternoon and whilst the woman was very kind and friendly I was a bit shocked by the conditions the birds are being kept in. I should explain that the woman's husband used to breed and show budgies so they were never really pets per se. He died suddenly 18 months ago and she has just kept the birds but not breeding or showing them. She doesn't mean to be unkind but she knows no better.
She has 18 hens in one cage and 40 cocks in another and neither cage has anything but dowel perches, water bottles and food bowls - no toys or enhancing material. They are all housed in a garage so cannot see the outside world. Two budgies were in individual cages, one (temporarily) because he wasn't well and the other because he had been born disabled - no feathers on his stomach and no wings. He can't live with the others as they will attack and kill him.
I, rightly or wrongly, feel it would have been best if he had died shortly after birth, but as they kept him alive he now lives in a small cage with nothing except two dowel perches, too far apart for him to hop from one to another, All he can do is walk up up and down one perch. He is 18 months old and will live in this way for the rest of his life. I couldn't help but suggest he could have some toys and she did say she would buy him one. Looking at this small helpless creature in such lamentable conditions broke my heart. It took all my strength not to walk out with him and bring him home for a better life. Could he survive coming from those conditions to somewhere he'll have everything a budgie could want or need or would it be too much of a shock for him?
#1
