Sales a Burden for Stressed Birds

The bird sale season is well underway and though the sweltering temperatures of summer have begun to subside, stress and dehydration are both still major concerns for bird’s ear marked for this year’s sales. Small carry boxes, many of them over crowded with birds, are packed off into the car with hours, or some with multiple days worth of travel ahead of them. In these conditions, birds are bound to become stressed and dehydration will begin to set in not long after.

At the sale, things do not improve much, a strange environment, cages upon cages of other birds and an orchestra of noise combine to make a very stressful atmosphere. Once we add the final ingredient of rising temperatures due to the sheer number of buyers in the confined space of the hall, well you can begin to sweat and fret just thinking about it. Now spare a thought for the birds. Stress and dehydration levels for these guys have just reached all new heights.

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Sales are tough on birds. After arriving home as a new purchase this Rainbow Lorikeet is dehydrated, stressed and vulnerable to illness. Electrolytes in these circumstances are a huge help to birds.

For birds that have been purchased and are on their way to a new home, the stress of the sale is still not over. They need to again travel, then be introduced into a completely new environment, many times straight into the aviary with other birds. It is no wonder then that most of us have experienced the death of a bird within a matter of days of arriving home after a sale, whether a new purchase or simply a bird returned back to our own aviary after failing to sell. Stress + dehydration = sickness, and sickness in birds can quickly lead to death.

Many of the negative side effects of dehydration and stress can be combated and even eliminated to a point by offering your birds some support leading up to, during and after a bird sale. The use of an electrolyte and energy supplement (such as Spark Liquid) in the drinking water a few days before leaving for a sale, through to the point the birds return to either your own or their new owners aviary works wonders. Your birds will handle the travelling with less stress and display much better on the day, which increases the likely hood of them selling and acclimatising to their new environment without “falling off the perch”.

 

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featured in Talking Birds magazine May 2011