Tank history

[Colin_T]

@Colin_T Do you keep any birds? Or what birds have you kept in the past/favourite birds?

We had chooks, ducks and geese but most of the birds I kept were Australian finches and small parrots. Shaft tail, double bar, star, painted, gouldian finches, etc. And bourkes, turquoisine, scarlet chested, budgies, weeros, pink & grey galahs, major mitchel cockatoos; various quail and doves. I lost the lot during the cat war when someone came into my backyard and cut every panel of every aviary open from top to bottom and pulled the wire apart. Then they went into the aviaries and flushed all the birds out. The cops did nothing about it.

The only birds I have kept since then was a pair of canaries that lived in a cage and were put outside during the day when I was home and brought in at night.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

We had chooks, ducks and geese but most of the birds I kept were Australian finches and small parrots. Shaft tail, double bar, star, painted, gouldian finches, etc. And bourkes, turquoisine, scarlet chested, budgies, weeros, pink & grey galahs, major mitchel cockatoos; various quail and doves. I lost the lot during the cat war when someone came into my backyard and cut every panel of every aviary open from top to bottom and pulled the wire apart. Then they went into the aviaries and flushed all the birds out. The cops did nothing about it.

The only birds I have kept since then was a pair of canaries that lived in a cage and were put outside during the day when I was home and brought in at night.

Oh my gosh, that's AWFUL! Can't believe someone would do that! If they thought they were doing a good thing "freeing them", I hope they learned that they killed them instead, that these were likely captive bred, even if native species, and not used to foraging for themselves or avoiding dangers in the wild. I'm so so sorry you went through that!

My mum had a roseate (galah) for a long while that she adored, again, before I was born. She used to hate that they're often shot as pests in Aus, but also not allowed to be caught and shipped here instead, where they're wanted and worth hundreds of pounds each.

 

[Colin_T]

The person that cut my aviaries opened wasn't doing it to free the birds. It was the neighbour over the road whose cats had been killing my birds for years and they refused to pay for any of the dead birds. So it started a feud where they brought in hundreds of cats over a couple of years, I killed every cat in the area, and they decided to get rid of my birds for me.

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Your mum isn't the only one who gets annoyed at stupid government policies that say farmers can shoot birds destroying crops but not trap and sell them. Lots of people (farmers, conservationists, etc, including myself) spent years trying to get the government to allow farmers to trap pest birds, hold them for a few months and get them vet checked, then sell them legally on the overseas markets. It would reduce smuggling, bring in a heap of money for the farmers, and mean the farmers don't have to kill the birds. Most farmers hate shooting the birds but when you have flocks of 10,000+ parrots landing on your wheat field every day, literally destroying the entire harvest in a matter of days, you either shoot them or lose millions of dollars in grain.

The government doesn't care. Nobody is exporting native birds and we want you to shoot them. This applies to all parrots, including black cockatoos that are on the endangered species lists. The government actively encourages farmers to shoot them rather than trap and relocate or just let them be. It's fuplie ridiculous because they class the birds (black cockatoos) as threatened or endangered species. Then they tell farmers to shoot them.

All the government has to do let farmers trap certain pest parrots. They can give the birds to a government department or hold them on their own properties. The government can get the birds vet checked and organise buyers overseas. Then when everything is organised, the farmers put the birds in cages, take them to a holding facility and the birds get sent overseas. The farmers get a percentage of the money and the government gets the rest. It's not rocket science but seems to be too hard for some in power to understand.

 

[Donya]

Please keep the discussion here family friendly. Over-the-top remarks for shock value will be removed and/or the thread may get locked if it continues.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Nooooo, please don't get my thread locked!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Welp, all being well, looks as though I'll be getting my upgraded sized tank plus getting rid of the old ones at the weekend! It's been a long time coming since I've procrastinated and had to juggle a lot of fish too, so it'll feel good to get it done. Strictly speaking the dude I'm trading with is getting the better part of the bargain for sure, but on the other hand, it saves me the hassle of trying to sell all those tanks individually (at a time when a lot of people are getting rid of tanks because of electricity costs), and he'll deliver plus collect and help place the new tank where it needs to go. So the convenience makes it worth the slightly uneven trade, for me.