Complaint Review: Dianne and Connie's Birds

Dianne and Connie's Birds is an aviary selling different species of Parrots including parrotlets, lineolated parakeets (linnies), green cheek conures and crimson bellied conures in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area. The conditions in which this mother/daughter team raise their parrots are absolutely awpaulling and their parrots are not of the quality professed on their website.

Dianne and Connie's Birds will never make the great pet they suggest on their site and selling these poor, neglected birds as such is a shame. What these birds really need is to be rescued. The house reeks of bird filth and is filled with clutter from floor to ceiling - very unprofessional and unsanitary. The parrots are kept in filthy cages much to cramped for the number of birds housed in them. To keep them quiet, she had towels over the cages so they were constantly in the dark although it was midday. I saw many parrots with open wounds and soars probably due to other territorial parrots no thanks to the overcrowding. Most showed clear signs of distress evident in their dulled colors, broken feathers and stress marks seen on the tail feathers.

Why Dianne and Connie were breeding more parrots for sale when they had adult parrots still left unsold and neglected is beyond me. When Connie wanted to show me a parrot, she reached into the cage and chased it around while the poor bird tried to escape. Finally she grabbed it and thrust the young parrot into my hands but the poor thing was scared practically to death.

My mistake believing I was getting the quality pet she promised via her website - a hand-tamed, pet parrot should be able to perch on the hand but Dianne and Connie's Birds are too afraid of hands to do so.

In my shock I purchased what I had traveled out of my way to buy just hoping to give the poor parrot a better home. Paying premium prices competitive with other aviaries offering TRUE quality, hand-tamed parrots, that's what I expected. However, their parrots are certainly not hand-tamed and my parrot, now healthy, happy, clean and singing his sweet parrot song, will never be hand-tamed and still struggles with being approached though we have been working with him patiently for two years now.

Though I love him and don't regret having him, I'm short the premium price I paid for a parrot with as many problems as you would expect to find in rehomed parrots in sanctuaries. These birds should be adopted out and rehomed to willing families who know how to handle traumatized parrots properly and with lots of love and patience - not sold as hand-tamed, quality pets.

Do not buy parrots from these people. They should be shut down.