You brought up several important questions that I would like to take some time to address!

Chapter 1: Breeders and the public.
In Chapter 3 (Understanding Aviculture) of the Expert Companion Bird Care Series: Volume II, Rick Jordan covers the history and role that aviculture plays with pet birds. Responsible aviculturists focus on raising healthy birds. While some small scale aviculturists do interact with the public, larger aviaries typically do not. There are several reasons, but the two most common are biosecurity and lack of time or resources to handle bird owner questions.

Regarding biosecurity, it is generally risky business to allow the public on grounds to view or interact with the birds. It can violate closed aviary principles and result in disastrous infectious disease outbreaks. (Try walking into any reputable poultry producer without authorized clearance, a shower and wearing a hazmat suit!) The other issue is that aviculturists tend to be very busy taking care of birds and do not have the staff power to handle all of the comments coming from the public. However, quality aviculturists do regularly interact with the stores carrying their birds.

Pet stores are the direct connection between the owner and bird and serve a different function from aviculturists. With that said, some pet stores run an aviary and a pet store and have learned to do both well. And this will bring me to Chapter 2!

Chapter 2: Corporate pet stores.
With all of the pressure on larger ‘corporate’ pet stores to provide good quality healthy pets, there have been significant improvements in how these companies care for their animals. The reality is that the vast majority of ‘accountable’ (meaning we actually have data) pet birds sold, come from corporate pet stores. A large part of those ‘unaccountable’ birds come from flea markets, bird marts and classified ads. We really know very little about what happens to the ‘unaccountable’ birds. So we felt that it was very important to give prospective owners guidelines when considering buying birds from corporate stores (since the majority of ‘accountable’ birds come from these sources).

Dr Edling does a good job of giving people those guidelines. Of course the experience is very different from a small specialty bird store- which is not available in many cities. So while the corporate pet store may not always have the ideal set up for their birds, these companies are actively working to improve those situations. The first two chapters should help prospective bird owners better understand the difference between corporate and specialty bird stores and ultimately make good purchasing decisions.

Chapter 4: Questions on sexing and identification.
There are definitely some parrot species (such as eclectus) that are dimorphic. However, most are not. While wild type cockatiels are dimorphic, some of the color varieties are not (I have personally been fooled by these birds!).

Good quality leg bands can be very helpful. The downsides are they can be removed, letter and numbers fade and may serve as a hazard under some circumstances. Microchips are also not perfect and may fail, not be noticed (failure to scan for the microchip) and can also be removed (although more difficult than leg bands). So they both have pros and cons.

Hopefully these points answer your questions and thank you for your review!

Scott Echols, DVM, Dipl ABVP (Avian Practice)