Casa La Parrot

Don’t have a bird, but I definitely would shop here if I did. Wide variety of toys, birds, cages, and other related products. I also believe their staff are very knowledgable and can answer any question you might have. I loved visiting and browsed for about an hour interacting with the blue and gold macaws.

First thing’s first: I know NOTHING about birds. I don’t own a bird and I’ve never been around them. As a pet owner and lover– birds are NOT my expertise. But that’s why I have a few things to mention;
Casa La Parrot is definitely off the beaten path (at least mine– I really don’t make it to 28^th street much if I can help it) and it’s pretty quaint, slightly crowded– but charming!
Every staff member I came in contact with was extremely friendly, never seeming bothered or annoyed and generally pleasant. This is BIG. Specialty shops of any sort can seem intimidating, unwelcoming and cold and let’s face it; having a complete rookie asking silly questions really isn’t the most enjoyable work-​time task. It’s refreshing to be around connoisseur or even novice level folks who seem happy that you’re interested in their niche.
As someone who hasn’t ever cared about becoming a bird-​owner, I now really want a parrot – so, there’s that. I have a feeling I may be updating this someday with my new found bird enthusiasm!
This is only four versus five stars due to my lack of bird knowledge or knowing anything about the quality of product they carry.

I went to casa la parrot for the first time the other day. I’m a long time bird lover so I was excited to go to a store that has just bird stuff. I was also hoping to pick out a toy for my pet cockatiel while I was there as an added bonus.
I was rather underwhelmed with the place. There were cages and perches haphazardly placed all over with barely space to walk between them. I was told they aren’t usually that way, but they were making room to take photos of birds in one area of the store. At one point I was looking in a cage only to feel a tugging behind me. A cockatoo in the cage behind me had stuck his foot out of his cage and grabbed my jacket. That’s how close they were.
About half the birds seemed to be not for sale or sold. I was told the owner owns many of them and they were very attached to her.
In addition, I had absolutely no idea who was working there, who was shopping, and who was just hanging around to see the birds. There was no uniforms or even name tags to indicate who might be working. I tried to find someone to ask if I could handle a bird and twice approached people who didn’t work there thinking the did, but one of them told me I was allowed to handle the birds as long as I didn’t let them on top of their cage or on another bird’s cage.
Sure enough, I took a baby macaw out of the cage and handled him a bit and no one so much as batted an eye. Which had me pretty concerned because what if I had something toxic on my hands or had come into contact with a disease I could have passed on? What if I didn’t know how to handle a macaw, especially not a young one who was still very unsteady on his feet? Or what if I tried to feed him something that made him sick? It just seemed very dangerous and very irresponsible to allow anyone to walk up and handle the birds.
There was lots of signs saying handle at your own risk, not our fault if you get bit, etc, but at some point I think the store needs to take some responsibility for the safety of their customers and their birds. It’s a cool experience for someone to get up close and personal with the birds and certainly helps let customers get attached to them (and then want to buy them), but I could see a lot of potential for things to go wrong.
At no point did anyone who actually worked there approach me and ask if I needed any help, if there was anything they could do for me, or had if I had any questions.
The informal atmosphere might make for a fun work environment, but as a customer it left me feeling like it wasn’t a serious business, more like a fun hobby.
It’s certainly not the place to go if you are looking for a bargain. The birds seemed overpriced. They had a total sweetheart of a Black-​headed Caique, but it was priced at $ 1,200. I was under the impression they went for $ 700-​$ 900. I took a peak at the cages for sale. Again, overpriced. They were selling a finch flight cage for $ 119. I got the exact same cage at Petsmart, not on sale, for $ 75.
The place did seem clean though, which is a plus. And all the birds looked pretty healthy. They were alert and active with no signs of feather plucking. Everyone had toys, food, and clean water. There was a separate room for very young birds with windows so you could look in and signs saying employees only. That was very nice to see and it was, again, very clean in there.
The only birds which did not look good were the zebra finches. There were way too many in the cage and some were missing feathers and looking ragged. But they didn’t necessarily look sick, just like they were being bullied and had no space to get away.
I did feel like some of their cages were too small, especially for the larger macaws, which resulted in a lot of tail feathers being mangled by the bars.
All in all, though, if the extra price wasn’t an issue, I’d definitely consider buying a bird from there.
They had a decent selection of food, toys, and treats for larger birds. Again, slightly more overpriced than you’d get at most other pet stores, but honestly not too bad, only a few dollars more.
Sadly, though, their toy selection for smaller birds was pretty lacking. I went home without a toy for my cockatiel as none of the few offered seemed like anything he’d be interested in.

all ill say is this, if you live in or near Grand Rapids and you have a parrot or are thinking about getting a parrot, you need to come here!!! extremely helpful