Aussie Finch Forum

I have an interesting little conundrum. About 5 months ago, I sold a teenager a pair of birds of a mutation that I am uninterested in pursuing. I gave her a lot of advice and encouragement (and sold the birds quite cheaply- and even gave her some seed), even though she wasn't the friendliest person around (in fact, a couple of her e-mails were actually a bit rude), and she showed up with no notice, and with no carry cage to transport the birds. She also bought some other birds (I don't know how many) from other sources- probably pet stores. She mentioned she was interested in buying silvers and dilute blues as well, and asked me to let her know when I had some available. I messaged her last week to let her know that I had some. She replied that she was, but then did not respond when I queried when she was able to come by. I messaged her again today, and she said she still wants a pair, but she wants to swap a male she purchased from me, as he 'is not compatible' with her females (again, not sure how many she has). I said that I'm not in the habit of swapping birds, as I only sell off birds that I am uninterested in keeping, and asked how they were incompatible. She said that the female was producing infertile eggs, and the male kept attacking the females (even though I had previously advised her that she should wait until late spring to breed them).
So, the end of this is a question to the forum members- what would you do in this position? Would you swap the bird?

I would tell this nasty pasty to travel and have X

I would stick to my guns, tell her again that you can't swap a bird that you don't know how it has been kept
and that she would be better off looking for a new blood line from elseware and you are not interested in her
problems.
Cheers Greg.

Phew! I was worried about discouraging a potential new fincho, but also didn't want to take the bird back (given she didn't take my advice about not breeding them in autumn and winter, how do I know they haven't contracted something?). I told her that I don't breed that line, so will not be swapping the male, and advised her (again) to separate the pair, and try introducing them again in 3-4 weeks to see if the female is ready to breed. Let's hope she does, and decides to get into finch keeping properly (and politely!)

Sounds like you handled the matter excellently Niki. Unfortunately some people take a lot of telling. If you buy a dress that should only be handwashed and chuck it in the washing machine you cant return it. Same goes for finches, if you buy a finch and ignore the breeders advice. Use that line if you need to in the future.
LML