>I prefer not to sell to pet stores. I just sold $100 worth of tiels to
>a very nice store and after she paid me cash,

>So now I have to risk my birds by bringing these back to the house
>after they've been in a store.
I'd do my darnedest to isolate them in a spare bedroom, a pantry, or at
a neighbor's house. I wouldn't bring them back into the house if at all
possible--gawd knows what SHE had in her STORE.
I once sold some baby conures to a brand new birds-only pet store, a
few years ago. The store tried to NOT pay me (kept telling me they were
waiting for their first box of checks to arrive from the new bank
account...). I MADE them give me cash (had to sit in the store for 6
hours until they finally paid me out of the register). They went out of
business about 8 weeks later. One of my babies was still in the store
then, and was sold at an auction to pay bills owed to creditors. The
store owner went to jail for credit card fraud. Fortunately, I found
where the baby went, and I know she's OK. And I was one of a small
handful of breeders who DID get paid by them--the rest of the breeders
sold to the store on credit or consignment, and lost their birds AND
their money. I'll never sell to a pet store again without having TONS of
references from others who've sold to them also.
>I like to match up pets with nice people, but there seem to be too few
>of them, and too many babies.
I've got a new tactic I've recently started using. I sell Oxyfresh
products, and I've been getting tables at bird club shows and fairs to
sell it. On my table, I set out several good quality photos of whichever
baby birds I have available (or coming up soon), with a sign saying "Ask
me about my baby birds". I've lined up several wonderful buyers that
way--all of them are people who know enough not to buy a baby bird
that's been taken out around other birds at shows. If you don't have a
product to sell, you might consider making up a good photo album of the
babies you have available, and put that out on 1/2 of a table (share a
table with a friend, perhaps).
--Kathy
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