been banned from walmart!

Abbey

Spork Queen
Budgies I can take. Cockatoos? No way. They chew too much. They'd destroy my nice stairway entrance that I just stained. Lorikeets...they go in YOUR corner so they can rocket poo around you.

On a side note, an Aussie friend of mine (not the deli guy) shoots Rose Breasted Cockatoos there. I find that so sad, but understand the damage they do to the houses. They are chewing machines. In the US, they sell upwards of $1500 because they are so beautiful.

Abbey
 

Marguerite

Active Member
"On a side note, an Aussie friend of mine (not the deli guy) shoots Rose Breasted Cockatoos there. I find that so sad, but understand the damage they do to the houses. They are chewing machines. In the US, they sell upwards of $1500 because they are so beautiful."
I thought all Aussie birds were protected everywhere now, but when I did some digging, I found that Galahs (aka Rose-Breasted Cockatoo in the US) are not protected everywhere, they are permitted to be culled in some areas. They are sometimes in plague proportions and that's not a pretty sight. I remember when I was about 15 and travelled with my parents to visit my brother, who lived out west (on the edge of what some people call "the outback"). On the way we drove through large wheat harvests, with piles of grain in the paddocks (it's done differently now). Large trucks were being loaded form the heaps of grain but often some would spill from the trucks. The mounds of grain were often covered with huge flocks of galahs. Any spilled grain on the road was also covered with galahs. Sometimes the road would be completely covered, for half a mile or more. The flock would try to take off as trucks drove along but there were too many birds for them to all take off at once. There were dead birds everywhere, but they were only a fraction of the huge numbers. We drove through, going slowly so as to not hit birds, but it was unavoidable.

With galahs, they don't damage the houses like sulphur-crested do. But there are easy ways to deal with the house-eaters - don't put food out for them. Galahs are harder to deal with - any grain, either growing or spilled, brings them in. They mostly live outback, but the drought has brought a lot of them to the coast. Here they are harmless, they eat grass seed.

I'd hate to have to shoot these birds. They ARE pretty, but in Australia, calling someone a galah is an insult, it's like calling them an idiot. Or a drongo.

Marg
 
B

bran155

Guest
I am probably very late in reading this but LMAO, laughing out loud funny!!!!

Thanks for sharing. :)
 

Abbey

Spork Queen
Marg, it's somewhat like gophers here. They are adorable, but do a huge amount of damage to land and crops. Now, gophers don't go for $1500, but they are cute. Poor guys.

So, I guess if I was in Australia, I would put up the best chewing post for the Galahs to have their way. It would probably be down in a day, but at least my patio would be safe.

Abbey
 

Marg's Man

Member
You wouldn't, you know. A chewing post would only encourage them and when it was gone they'd start on the patio. There are people in suburbs a bit of distance away who feed the cockies and galahs. When the food is finished they start chewing up the houses, then the neighbours' houses, then whatever else they can get to. The only way to protect your place is to make sure there is NO food they can get at AND to chase them off all the time.

Our 'gophers' are wombats, a tunnelling cousin of the koala but about twice as big. I've read of horses breaking their legs in a wombat hole (read gopher hole in the US or badger sett in the UK). The tunnels are so big (up to 18 inches across) that they can completely undermine a fence (or a house).

Marg's Man
 
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