So I went to the bird fair

And it was not a good experience at all! Some birds were kept in tiny wooden compartments filled with seeds as bedding and barely any light or air coming in. Someone bought a weaned 10 week old Alexandrine who still wasn't fully feathered, WTF! I tried to educate the couple who bought him, but the wife (primary caretaker) was a chinese lady with english issues, who seemed to not give a rat's ass about what I had to say. The husband was thankful, but he said the bird was the wife's deal.

Overall, everything was filthy and people really didn't know what they were doing. Someone had a plucked Citron crested cockatoo with butchered wings, and I don't think she'd ever see a vet or look for more info.

I'm angry, and I won't ever be going. I'll post pictures later, stay tuned!

I don't think I could ever go to one either. I am sorry. Those poor birdies.

I really don't have such a bad experience. Opposite!
Some birds was in small cages, but I simply assumed that it was space/transport issues. I was only once, but planning to go back again. In our BF it was tons of cheap toys, birds looks like taken care of. There was also rescue place with their parrots.
GlassOnion, I feel sorry for you. Come to Chicago next time and go with me

I am sorry to hear you had a bad experience at the Bird Fair. I was thinking about going to one in my area this summer. I hope I don't see bad conditions if I go....it would make me very upset. I don't know how some people can be so ignorant of the needs of animals in their care.

That's awful.

But you did the best you could do.

Wow, that's too bad GlassOnion. Usually at the bird marts people are bringing birds that are in pretty good shape. Overcrowding's normal, but it's only temporary for the day; and with the amount of stress involved there's usually a few sick looking birds, but overall they're in pretty good shape.

Small wooden crates that are dark w/ seed on the bottom - that's not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of birds are shipped/transported in that manner even by the most reputable breeders/dealers. The darkness keeps the birds calmer and the seed on the bottom makes it easy for them to find food. Did those wooden crates look like these: http://www.avesint.com/shipping.html Maybe even with a slanted front.

Overall filth and birds in poor condition are pretty bad. Was it a day's accumulation of refuse from the concentration of birds, or a layer of filth from several days/weeks?

I'm not trying to justify what you saw. I'm just trying to differentiate actual concerns from what you might not be familiar with seeing that's involved with having a large number of birds at a one day event. It's a little different than having a store front where the birds are not so packed in and are not being transported again same day.

I wanted to add - Yesterday we had Ducky at a Animal Blessing event at one of our local animal shelters. The organizer approached me to let me know that several people had expressed concern that I was walking around with a bird in a "small plastic box". There were dogs all over the place. I had to explain to him that Ducky was in a carrier with adequate ventilation, food and water. I showed him that Ducky was not in distress. I explained to him, with all the dogs around the safest place for Ducky was to be in a carrier. So in that instance, people had just never seen a bird in a carrier and didn't understand that was ok.

Trying to attach photos, but can't seem to transfer pics from my phone to the computer :/

I don't know, most cages look decently clean, but some of the water dishes looked like the water hasn't been changed in a long long time.
Some breeders had boxes of supplies that looked dirty and had poop on them. I just got a bleh feeling overall.

The cardboard container was a multi bird container, the little compartments were TINY. There were also very very dark slices of apples that looked very old and no they weren't just discolored slices, they looked shrunk and very dark brown.

GlassOnion wrote:

Trying to attach photos, but can't seem to transfer pics from my phone to the computer :/

I have Verizon, but I would imagine this would work with most carriers... if you have texting you should just be able to text them to your email address. Worth a shot!