Message Board
Birdpeadia
What is a bird sale?
A bird sale is an annual market conducted by the various avicultural societies (bird clubs) to assist its
members and other birdkeepers in selling their excess birds. They are usually held under cover eg in
a rented hall, sports stadium or showground convention centre. Tables are arranged in aisles and
many sellers who take part, display their cages full of birds on those tables just like the stalls in Melbourne's Victoria Markets or Sydney's Paddys Markets.
What is the cost of entry?
The cost of entry is normally $1 or $2 per person, the money is generally used to pay for the rental of
the venue including cleaning up afterwards.
Why come to a bird sale?
Whether or not you are intending to buy or you just want to look around , the sales offer an extensive
range of birds , far more variety than even a specialized birdshop could ever display. You will see rare
birds from overseas and new colour mutations you never would have dreamed of. The sellers, being specialist breeders, are more than happy to talk to you and answer any questions you have on a specific species. You will even be able to make contact with breeders and establish a network to further advance a rare hard to obtain line.
Why buy at a bird sale?
The first advantage is prices are generally a lot less than going to a specialist bird shop or general petshop. A lot of the sellers are hobby breeders and every bird that they sell has been bred by them, therfore they can give you an accurate history on the birds that you buy eg how old they are, whether they are related, what they like to eat etc. Secondly, the range is extensive, the choice is greater than you will ever get at any petshop. There are multiple sellers selling the same birds thus guaranteeing that you won't end up with birds that are from the same bloodline.
Why sell at a bird sale?
You don't get strangers going to your house pretending to buy so that they can case out your bird collection. How many instances have you heard of breeders getting their prized birds stolen? If you sell the birds through the classifieds or the internet the buyers come in drips and drabs over an extended period of time. During this time you need to be home to make the sale or take phone calls. At a birdsale you get all the buyers coming to you and they come for one reason.....to buy birds!. There are no advertising costs. Your address remains private. Provided that you are not too greedy with the pricing , it's all over in one day.
What do I need to bring?
If you intend to buy, the first thing you will need to bring is cash. Most sellers are like you and I, they don't have the ability to process credit card payments or EFTPOS transactions. However, most trade stands would have at least manual credit card facilities.The second thing that you need to bring is a cage, although you can bring along a plain wire cage, it is recommended that you use a wooden carry box. This is basically a wooden box with a wire front on one side. The reason for this is so the birds have a little more privacy and don't get stressed out resulting in heart attacks. A cardboard box is also more preferable to a wire cage. If a wire cage is used I would suggest you take along a towel to throw over the cage while transporting the birds home.
Do they sell anything else other than birds?
Yes, the trade stands sell a wide range of books and magazines, nest boxes for parrots, finches and canaries. You can find bird feeders of every type, crop needles, tonics and medicine, bird rings, carry boxes, parrot toys, cages........ I can go on and on.
Why is the Calendar/Events page never up to date?
After the birdsale avicultural societies must hold a meeting to set the date for the next sale, we cannot publish the next sale until the clubs have decided on a date and we are notified or it gets published in the avicultural magazines and papers.
These webpages don't sit nicely on my screen?
This website was developed for PCs with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and a text size being set to medium in the Internet Explorer browser window.
To change the screen resolution: click on the START button (Bottom left of this page), then click CONTROL PANEL. Next double click the DISPLAY icon and then click on the SETTINGS tab. There is a slider switch labelled SCREEN RESOLUTION. Drag the switch to the left or right till 1024 x 768 is displayed. Click OK when done.
To Change the Text Size: Click VIEW on the Internet Explorer toolbar (second line from the top of this page), then click on TEXT SIZE and make sure MEDIUM is the option selected.
I'm Clicking on the links to a DIY page but I get Error: THE PAGE CANNOT BE DISPLAYED?
Some of these links are to private webpages which reside on servers with narrow bandwidths or on servers of dubious reliability, you may find that you need to click refresh a few times or try at various times of the day to get the page to display.
How do I stop those annoying popup advertisements?
In order to keep development costs low, in a few of my webpages, I opted to use free developed applications from Bravenet, unfortunately one of the side effects of using their free version of the software is that we have to put up with pop-up advertising. If you are using internet explorer you can supress pop-ups by clicking on TOOLS at the top of the menu bar, then select POP-UP BLOCKER and then place a tick on TURN ON POP-UP BLOCKER by clicking on it.
Where do I obtain the parts for DIY projects?
The cheapest thermostats are those used by the reptile keepers. They are complete units ready to run, no assembly is required and are priced between $60 - $80 (AUD) . I bought one from eBay for $60, it has a dial to set your temperature anywhere up to 40 degrees, which is basically all you need unless you are intending to make hard boiled egg with it. A probe attached to a long cable is included to allow you to pop it into your brooder or incubatorto measure the internal temperature. On the actual box, is a power point where you can plug a heating device on (eg light bulb, infra red lamp , heating mat or heating cable) and the unit is powered from a normal 240V powerpoint.
To find these items on ebay or google use key words THERMOSTAT or THERMASTAT REPTILE
also try REPTILE HEAT MAT or HEAT CABLE.
Last Updated: Aug 6th, 2007