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From: stewartw@warpdrive.UUCP (Stewart Winter)
Newsgroups: rec.birds,rec.pets
Subject: Re: Cages - Quality at a price?
Keywords: cages, birds, parrots
Message-ID: <6684@warpdrive.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jul 89 21:20:13 GMT
References: <6606@cloud9.Stratus.COM> <33434@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: stewartw@cognos.UUCP (Stewart Winter)
Followup-To: rec.birds
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 44

In article <33434@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>>    As some (all?) of you have realized there is a tremendous markup
>>    on parrot cages as wellas the parrots themselves.  With the
>>    recent popularity of magazines devoted to avian research and pet
>>    ownership, I've wondered if any of the mail order places have
>>    better rates.  Has anyone any good/bad experiences with ordering
>>    a cage by mail order?
>
>I took a look at the prices of Pet Warehouse (one of the big advertisers in
>the bird magazines) and was not impressed. One of the cages I'm lusting
>after was more expensive than I could get it locally. Maybe some of the
>others are better, but I dunno. My next cockatoo cage is probably an Animal
>Environments (I've seen them in action, and I really like them). Not cheap,
>but the construction seems to be really worth it.

    Actually the markup on Animal Environments cages isn't that big.
In fact it turns out to be less than the tax and duty to import the
cage into Canada.  However, Animal Environments bumped their prices up 
by 20% this year and as far as I can tell didn't improve the actual cage.
If you want the actual markup figures I can dig them up for AE and
a few others.

   I just bought a cage from King's Aviary in New York.  It is nice,
but the joints for the swinging parts are not all that well built so
I wouldn't recommend it for that reason (although that is quite easy
to fix).  It is a 300 lb. Macaw cage.  Shipping was ~$100 US from 
New York to Ontario.

   Another nice cage for Cockatoo and Amazons is the TidyHome cage.  It
is a lot less expensive (relatively speaking to AE).  It is less of an
art piece than the AE cages, but it a really well made, functional
cage.

   Around here no one carries cages like that in the store, so you
have to order them from the company or mail order.  My impression
has been to buy them straight from the company is not much more
costly.

  Stewart
-- 
Stewart Winter                Cognos Incorporated   S-mail: P.O. Box 9707
VOICE: (613) 738-1338 x3830   FAX: (613) 738-0002           3755 Riverside Drive
UUCP: uunet!cognos!stewartw                                 Ottawa, Ontario
"The bird for the day is .... canary winged parakeet."      CANADA  K1G 3Z4