I just had to share this as it has been bothering me since yesterday when I went to Petland.

My husband and I stopped in there to pick up some treats for all our pets. Anyway, they had a Red Macaw, an umbrella, tiels & parakeets. All caged separately of course, well they were all so cute and I was greeted by a huge "HELLO" from the umbrella. What a cutie...but how sad for all of those birds. The umbrella was not even in cage, she was housed in a plexiglass type thing.

But....

The worst thing to me and what has been bothering me is that the water in all cages was so grossly dirty. I mean every water bowl for each of the 4 cages was so disgusting!!! The water was mucky brown to the point you could almost not see through it. There was poop, food and whatever else in these bowls and when I checked in on the parakeets I saw one drinking from the bowl and I almost started crying. I felt so bad that those poor birds had to drink brown poopie water. There is NO WAY that water could have been given to them fresh that day, it was only 1:00 in the afternoon.

I feel like I want to report them..but to whom would I go to? When I was there I asked a worker about the store management who was not available and the worker also stated that each store is privatly owned.

Am I being an over sensative bird lover and over reacting??

I think you are right in your concerns. I had the same issues with a petstore here in town. I turned it over to the dept of ag, now when i go in all cages are very very clean, fresh food and water is always clean. keep on this for the birds sake please.

you are NOT being overly sensitive. the same thing happened to me at a Petco.

they have cats from a shelter that are up for adoption. i was visiting with the kitties and i noticed one had blood mixed in with his stool (which was more like diarrea).

i looked at the 4 separate food and water dishes and not one of them had any water at all. it was only 12:00pm.

i did complain... rather loudly... to the poor cashier who then called a manager over. i did go online and filed a complaint about that store. i went back 2 days later and the conditions looked better.

pet stores should not be able to have live pets if they can't take care of them. sell food, sell toys, do grooming instead!

You can contact your humane society or spca, often they will take action against the store

Yes, also noticed some pet stores in Australia using thse strange "cages" come cubicles for their birds. I don't like it. Just want to take them all home.

Done that too, contacted authorities in Holland about a place when I encountered a bad situation there and was told that there wasn't actually any regulation (if I recall correctly; it was five years ago or so), but that at least they could keep an eye on the place.

Turned out that the store happened to be in between 'animal staff'; their main pet care person had just left and they were still looking for a replacement. I later got to know that replacement and she was great.

Acrylic boxes in themselves do not need to be bad at all, btw, but I guess you know that.

I have been in a few bad places and I reported them. I went back later and there were some changes made. I also get a little upset when I go into some of these places and smell how bad they are and see what the cages look like.

good idea!

Thank you all for the suggestions, my schedule is lighter on Fridays so tomorrow I plan to do some calling around.

I just love animals and to see that right out in the open makes me also wonder what is going on that we do not know about??? It is truly bothersome and I am not one to complain but this is too much for me to ignore.

How sad to not have fresh water.I change my birds water twice daily. not a fun job, but I do it. Even if it's spotless in the afternoon, it still gets changed. I can't remember what or where I read, but something about the amount of bacteria that can grow in a water bowl in just 24 hours!!!
If the pet stores can't handle taking care of their animals they don't need to be selling them. They seem to find the time to restock their shelves and take our money, so what's their problem?
I went into a Petsmart in Ann Arbor, Mi and the cages are all clean, the birds all look healthy with a variety of pellets and so forth in their dishes and to top it all off, they were all eating fresh veggies. I told the guy in charge there that I was impressed with how well they took care of their animals and that so many pet shops get complained about.
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