The Price of Birds
M Nissen

In our pursuit of breeding and showing birds, also known as the “fancy”, we are often minded to sell excess bird stock for one reason or another.

Some of us, who could be termed ‘gentlemen breeders’ often have no financial imperative to sell their birds. Some of us, myself included, rely on the money gained from such sales to defray the costs of running the breeding and showing of our birds.

In any case there is a considerable market in birds from breeders and one only has to attend the South Auckland Cage Bird Club Auction at Pukekohe each year to see what numbers there are.

There are various sales and auctions around the country throughout the year and these events always offer a good opportunity to buy and sell birds. There are bargains to be had and good avenues to dispose of birds.

Another method of selling birds is to take them to a petshop. This is where I have to discuss inequity. When I discuss prices below I refer to Budgerigars, though I know that this discussion applies equally to other species.

We all know that petshops have to make a profit, we all know that the overheads that petshops have, mean that to make this profit, they’ll often sell a bird for considerably more than they paid for it. This is not the problem of which I speak. What does concern me, is that for years now, the shops are refusing to pay more than say $8 a bird.

I can understand this if the cost of producing these birds was static and there had been no inflation in the economy or seed prices or bird prices to the breeder. But what I have seen is that the price pet shops will pay has remained static, but the price they sell them for has risen.

A further problem is that most petshops will steadfastly pay the same amount for a high quality show bird with a closed ring that guarantees age and by implication provenance, as they will a “rat” bird from a backyard breeder that may well be about to die. And the show birds will then go on to attract extremely high prices in the pet shop’s cages.

The situation is compounded when specialist varieties are offered, like yellow faced blues or recessive pieds. The gleam in the pet shop staff’s eye is evident on sighting these birds, but they are unprepared to pay much more than a dollar or two more for the highly saleable specimens.

And all of this when the banks of cages in the shop have very few if any birds in them. I cannot understand why a pet shop would rather have few or no birds in their cages and still expect to make a good business from birds.

In a world where show dogs and cats, are worth hundreds and thousands of dollars, we all know that petshops would not offer the breeders of a St Bernard for example, the same price as the seller of a mutt dog. I wonder why the petshops feel that quality cage birds should be treated in the this manner.

It may be that petshops are no longer interested in selling pets, and that the sparce scattering actual live pets is merely a front for their more profitable, pet food and accessory business.

In any case, I feel that petshops would do well to begin treating suppliers of birds with a little respect and start paying more for the birds from established breeders. It may be that the petshops could charge more at the retail end for quality birds.

Certainly I would pay more for a cat with provenance than I would for a moggie. A closed rung bird is in the same league and I think that most of us would provide a pedigree or history for each bird if the price encouraged it.

Seed has gone up in price, the birds we sell are of good quality and deserve a good price. The attitude of petshops in paying low prices for quality birds will encourage breeders to not sell to them, as often the trip to “bring the birds in and we’ll have a look at them” is not worth the insult, when a price is offered.