If you are thinking that breeding parrots would be fun & profitable - THINK AGAIN! It can be a lot of fun, but it is also a heck of a lot of work!!!
If you even imagine that you are going to get rich or even make a sizeable profit - THINK AGAIN! Breeding pet animals of any kind, is a very expensive hobby, not a way to make a living. If you are able to cover your feeding, housing & veterinary expenses, you will be doing good. If you are making a huge profit, then you are not treating your animals humanely.
If you are not ready to educate yourself on genetics, health & nutrition, etc. for at least a year prior to beginning breeding AND if you are not prepared to hand feed baby parrots every 4 hours AND if you are not ready to handle, love and socialize each and every parrot, every day AND be responsible for the parrots YOU allowed to be hatched for the rest of their lives (as many will be returned to you by people who didn't realize what they were getting into), then STOP & THINK!
As wonderful as parrots are, they are DEFINITELY NOT THE PET FOR EVERYONE! They are intelligent, loving and beautiful, but they are also possessive, noisy, self-centered, messy, very destructive and can bite the Hell out of you.
Our experiences with bird rescue with another club were daunting. We received relinquished birds faster than we could place them. Sanctuaries and rescue groups around the country are inundated with birds they cannot place. As many of our avian friends live 80+ years, you can see the problem. If everyone who wanted a parrot would adopt a previously owned parrot, there would still be enough to go around without anyone breeding more.
So, unless you plan on dedicating most of your time to breeding and raising parrots AND being responsible for the birds you breed for the rest of their/your life, please don't add to the problem by producing more parrots. There are enough people out there doing just that. By all means buy or adopt yourself a pet, but leave the breeding to experienced, dedicated people who know what they are doing.
If you still are not convinced please visit The Gabriel Foundation or Avian Welfare Resource Center or simply search on Google for "parrot rescue" and you will begin to see what an overwhelming problem the over-population of parrots has become. |
