A liquor store I used to go to when I lived in Austin had a shop parrot that lived there. It did a pitch-perfect impression of the door-is-opening chime, the little microwave in the back, etc. Always amusing.
I have no personal experience with them (yet) but I have heard that land tortoises have very charming personalities in their own way. A friend of a friend had one, and apparently it would (very slowly) come and greet you as soon as you got home.
I’m an animal lover, and I’d frequent a shop that had a shop critter. That said, solitary parrots have a tendency to get neurotic (decades of solitary confinement are considered punishment, y’know, at least for our species) and when they do, they shriek. Very loudly. THAT is off-putting, for sure.
For me, there’s something about birds… love them. A friend had a white cockateil with orange cheeks and funny yellow feathers on the top of her head that criss-crossed. He always left the cage door open for her to come and go at will. She would fly all around the apartment/home office where we worked. She would come to you if you called her name. She would sit on your head. She would sit on my shoulder and crawl down my arm as I did paperwork. She would go inside the cage and close the door behind her to go to sleep at night. After knowing this smart, beautiful bird I could not bear to see a bird caged…
I’ve actually been to stores (other than pet stores) where there are birds. How I feel about it depends mostly on whether or not the birds are receiving proper care.
Birds need more space than people think they do. If they’re gong to spend all their lives in a cage they need a really big cage. They also need safe places to shelter overnight and while people aren’t wround. I’d recommend something like finches which are quite small, quite colorful, and don’t make as much noise as parrots. Parrots really need a lot of social time and attention. Yes, including parakeets and cockatiels and lovebirds and all the other small parrots.
That said, no matter how well your shop birds are treated someone is going to get their panties in a twist.
I’ve got two parrots right now who sometimes like to sleep in. The cage door can be wide open, the sun shining… they’re insisting on sitting on their perch with a head tucked under a wing despite all that. My birds don’t regards their cages as prisons - they’re bedrooms and safety.
My birds do get plenty of time every day outside their cages when they are allowed to fly around and be birds. However, much of that time they choose to sleep on a perch in a corner of the room. Not all birds spend all their lives in cages.
Now, for something small like a finch you can certainlly build a cage large enough for the bird(s) to fly around in. Unfortunately, that is not always the case for pet birds.
My opinion is that it would be very difficult to really set up a good environment for a “store bird”. Not impossible, but difficult. The tortise/turtle idea sounds pretty good to me. Or maybe a fish tank.
I keep trying to parse this phrase, but can’t quite manage it. This three-bird owner is shuddering at the thought of what free-roaming birds would do to a computer in the same room. :eek:
A couple I know were going to put an aviary in their personal care home. Looking into liability issues, specifically concerning Psittacosis and documenting the health of the birds, led to their scraping their plan.
What kind of shop do you have? I personally love animals in stores and only the tarantula would put me off. But some people might be skeeved if you have a grocery store. How about a small rabbit? Everyone loves bunnies!
It has a cage built around it from panels of wire cube shelving (this stuff) so it can circulate heat while running. The wires coming out the back go into a tube, the surge protector is inside a box, and we cover the front of the wire cage with a towel that also covers the keyboard and mouse.
The mouse is wireless and the whole thing is on the wireless LAN.
That said, I have replaced a few cables over the years, the computer is probably dusty inside, and it has been a hit-or-miss process of figuring out bird hazards in the room and removing them.
Personally, I wouldn’t be comfortable with birds in that kind of environment, unless I knew they were being well taken care of and their needs met. And in that kind of environment, it would be doubtful.
Also, birds can be very messy, even when kept in cages - seed everywhere, poop everywhere (unless they are cleaned out very regularly, and it sounds as if cage cleaning would be an issue with the facilities available), and let’s not forget moulting time. Feathers everywhere!
I’ve kept birds before, and they got as much free range time as they wanted. I would not have kept them if I couldn’t have let them out on a regular basis (hours per day).
So my vote is no. You don’t sound like you know enough about birds to make it work. Sorry.
At least make damn sure you know what you’re getting into. Whereas a bird might very well compel me to favor your shop (other things being roughly equal), your typical solitary parrot in a too small cage, sitting over a mountain of feces plucking out its own feathers is guaranteed to keep me away no matter how good a business you run.
I’ve shopped at two places in my life that had birds they didn’t sell. One was a shoe store in the 60’s and 70’s. I liked to see the talking mynah bird as a kid. It didn’t affect the sale either way, because that was the only place to buy my corrective shoes. The other place is a car wash with a Macaw that only perches and I don’t like the huge beast as there is bird filth all over. I would rather a store I shopped at didn’t have bird detritus floating around.
Another NO vote. I would be creeped out by a bird (or any other pet, for that matter) in anyplace other than a pet shop. Just comes across as unprofessional to me. I understand that it can be lonely in the store sometimes, but the ambiance of the store is for the customers, not you. Maybe you can keep it in the back room?
I’ve seen a few stores in Chicago have cats and dogs in them but never birds.
If you want a cool pet that is very easy to care for get a chinchilla. I had one once. Of all the rodents, the don’t smell, they are definatly a conversation starter, they are so soft to pet (though they don’t like being handled much) and every once in awhile they make a cool sound, that is indescribeable.
As I said, they don’t smell and are easy to care for.
The more I learn about keeping parrots as pets, the more I think we really, really need to be careful with them - it sounds like they’re far too smart and social to be the caged pet to just look at that they are sort of assumed to be.
How about a land hermit crab? They’d be a great conversation starter if they would work for you.
A tackle shop I visit occasionally has a parrot of some sort. Kind of cool but annoying as hell. It usually makes this loud high pitched scream that I can really do without. It wouldn’t keep me from shopping at the store but it definitely doesn’t add anything to the experience either. A pet dog, on the other hand would be awesome. I’d play around with the dog for a little bit which would keep me in the store longer. I guess that’s what a store owner would be looking for.
When I lived in Charm City, there was a certain fellow who had a certain shop with a parrot (not caged IIRC) on Thames Street near the Cat’s Eye. Later there was a coffee shop.gallery there, but now, I don’t know. Ask at any of the old time bars or shops there, they can tell you what marketing value that bird was.
Go ask Ron, owner of at Max’s on Broadway around the corner about it. Also ask him about the fish tank he used to have, built into the wall.
I also might note that there was a nice neighborhood upscale place around the corner from where I lived in Fells Point, on Washington and Bank IIRC, who in the display window had a stuffed rabbit. No one knew the actual name of the place, and it was a nice place, but it was known far and wide as “The Dead Rabbit”. Don’t know if it is still there or not but there is a nice little bar/restaurant in the middle of the 1900 block of Bank where the owners could tell you about it…
I just realized how this sounds - I don’t mean the hermit crabs would be working in your store - I meant if they would work as a pet for you. Although hermit crabs doing stock and stuff would be adorable!
