Turns out there is a group of individuals who buy and resell baby birds that are removing the legbands and disguising who the original breeders are. They are selling the babies to their public customers and telling them that they bred the birds themselves. In one instance, a breeder was sold back her own baby when she was looking for a new bloodline to add to her program. She put two and two together when the perpetrator slipped up and forgot who the original breeder was and gave the same hatchdate as the breeder's baby which was sold to them earlier. Complicated, I know!
In some cases, the perpetrators are buying babies young enough to remove the original legbands and put on their own legbands. They are deliberately trying to "cover their tracks" and hide which breeders they are getting babies from. They could potentially do serious damage to bloodlines by aiding inbreeding.
So be very careful about who you sell your babies/breeders to in the Spokane area! There are some very untrustworthy people there!
