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I don't know Dr Todd, or have much experience with birds either for that matter, but for most of my life (I started in the animal industry when I was 16 and I'll be 46 in June) I have worked every aspect of the live animal industry including collecting, importing, raising, breeding and selling exotic animals. In quarentine the lower end of the scale will not get you the same quality as the upper end of the price scale. Most of the time the birds are only seen by a F&W officer or customs agent on arrival, they are not seen by a vet unless you pay for it, the daily care is done by a minimum wage employee who throws food and water into the cage, sometimes just on top of the old food, and if it gets sick it isn't their problem. Remember the quarentine station is a business and their goal is not to save the animal but to make money and make sure that a disease is not spread outside of the particular station where the animals are kept. They get paid if your birds die the same as if they live so to them as long as a pathogen doesn't get out of their door, they have done their job. I mentioned in my first post on this thread if you put them into QT make sure you can visit (some don't allow it unless you are an approved person for the station) and check them daily if not several times a day to make sure they are getting the care they need. Also make sure if they show signs of something you have the athority to treat the birds, again they are considered successful if the birds die but the pathogen that killed them does not leave the facility. I have lost whole shipments of mammals that were a lot more expensive then $3000 per individual because the goal of the quarentine is not to save the animal on site but the ones outside the facility. The other thing to remember is to a quarentine station a chicken is the same as an ostrich or a macaw, the people on site may have never seen a pygmy goose or even cared for a duck in their lives so they just do what someone else tells them to do, give them food and make sure they have water. Not all of them are staffed the same and you have to do the research and leg work to make sure your birds are cared for, and even if not to your standards it needs to be monitored daily.
I am not trying to talk anyone out of this, it is what I love to do and there is no reason you shouldn't do it yourself as well, I'm just giving you the information I have so you can make an informed decision while choosing from your options. The health of the birds as individuals are your concern, not the QT stations. Your goals in quarentine does not always match the goal of the people in charge of your birds for those 30 days.
this discussion!
