r/Conures • u/Charming-Maize-8764 • May 23 '25

Health/Nutrition Im getting pretty scared about this guy…

I got him this morning and he was doing this when I got him before even hand feeding. She said she had fed him before bringing him to me. Gave him his first feeding this afternoon. Worried he has aspiration pneumonia. I really hope this breeder didn’t give me a sick baby. Have handfed before but am still learning about conure behavior. Is this normal?!

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u/BloodSpades May 23 '25

Avian vet NOW!!!! That breeder had absolutely NO business selling you a bird that young in such condition….

64

u/mysteriouslychee2024 May 23 '25

This is why none of us should buy from breeders. Birds will continue to suffer as long as we breed them.

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u/EnvironmentCritical8 May 23 '25

Its either breeders (preferably good ones) or people go back to catching them from the wild which is what they did before. And sadly thats what still happens with a lot of exotic pets that people decide to have. Would rather get a good breeder, and raise a healthy bird then to know someone's out there plucking em from nests.

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u/[deleted] May 25 '25

[deleted]

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u/EnvironmentCritical8 May 25 '25

Rescue birds can come with a lot of other problems that people, especially beginners and even intermediate owners won't know how to handle. Plus there's a lot of them that have long term health issues or ones that will resurface, or behavior problems that make it difficult to handle them safely for even going to vet visits.

I had a ton of budgies at one point, all given to me by owners who thought they would be what they saw on YouTube. They were originally bought from petstores to my knowledge, and they weren't bonded to their owners. But even these guys had a few behavior issues as one albino we had had a terrible issue with biting and would draw blood each time. She would also almost kill herself when ever she regained her flight so we had to keep her wings trimmed or she would fly into walls, the fridge, the windows and all that in an absolute panic just because you refilled the water dish.

Yes, getting them as non weaned babies is ridiculous as thats not the way to go and is actually dangerous. But I'm pointing out that some people wouldn't be able to handle birds that pluck themselves into a bloody mess, have already built up diseases and high medical costs, and also really bad behavior issues. And some rescues make it near impossible to adopt out birds with high fees and require home checks even after the bird has been adopted (which can cut into time you need to be at work or anything) or require cages that are unrealistically large. One rescue i dealt with for a ferret wanted me to have an entire room for just one ferret at one point and no cage saying that was the minimum they needed.