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Review content:
""I was wondering if any of your English Budgies are available?""
""I don't have any. All I have are parakeets.""
For the bird impaired: Budgerigars, or Budgies, are commonly known as parakeets.
I opened my mouth to say something, then thought maybe she meant they were boarding the whole flock of mixed American, English, and English cross budgies in the corner cage and she meant Ringneck Parakeets or something, so I asked her how much they were. Thirty bucks, right on target for an overpriced budgie. I smiled, said thankyou, and tried to leave without dying of laughter.
I really, really hope this isn't known as THE place to go for birds and bird related stuff. They had a good selection of your run of the mill toys and boings etc. (don't laugh at me, bird folk will know what I'm talking about) and I was happy to see that they carry Roudybush and Harrisons. Their cages are outrageously priced.
On to the birds. I couldn't tell which birds were permanent fixtures of the shop, which were for sale, and which were boarding. It was a clusterf*** of feathers and (for whatever reason citysearch doesnt want me to say feces). Birds are everywhere, some of them thankfully out of cages but then there are Grays and Amazons in cages sized for Budgies (er I mean parakeets, my bad). My first impression upon entering was ""ugh"" as it looked like the place hadn't had a proper cleaning in ages. Yes, birds are messy... very messy... but you do not need more birds than you can handle. I figured the employees must be crazy busy, and its the end of the day, and they will clean up later.
Again, I couldn't tell who was boarding and who was for sale and who lived there, but I wasn't too happy to hear a ton of ""Hello!"" and wolf whistles and even one who sounded like it was yelling ""Help help!"" and then crying. My first thought was ""I wonder if these people are getting rehomed birds off of craigslist and then selling them.""
Which brings us to the employees. Aside from the obvious lack of knowledge from the owner (I'm assuming!) of all people, the service was more than lacking. My husband tried to get the attention of one of several employees to ask them what time they closed (as it was about 6 and the last place we tried to make it to closed at 5). He said they were all in their employee area, on Craigslist. Hmmm. That's very odd to me. The owner didn't even come out until a herd of children came shrieking in. We'd been there about 15 minutes. They didn't need to be typing away. They needed to be cleaning.
We used to do parrot rescue and when I got pregnant we decided not to bring in any more birds. We found good homes for the guys we had saved and tore down our cages. We moved to Mesa after the baby was born, and now that he's older I was hoping to find the same quality bird store out here as there was in Glendale to network with. I was sourly disappointed. I will be making the ONE HOUR DRIVE instead to my old store, which I can't remember the name of LOL but I will post it next time I go.
These kooks will not be getting a penny of mine unless they wise up, magically become nice, and scrub every inch of this place with a toothbrush.
And yes, by all means, go on in and see for yourself.
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