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Mrs. Gruesser first bred birds before she started boarding them and still raises a few each year. She began raising birds as a hobby in 1943, but it wasn't until 1950 that she accepted her first boarder, a canary which she had bred and sold and whose owners were going away on a vacation. Before long, when people bought birds from her they would ask her if she would keep their birds while they vacationed. One boarder led to another, and now Mrs. Gruesser has a full house all of the year. She has a few regular guests who stay with her for several weeks each winter, while their owners go to Florida. Then there are others who come only in the summers, when their families travel north. No one time of the year seems busiest.

Mrs. Gruesser believes her home enterprise is an ideal hobby for an elderly or retired person, even for some semi-invalids confined to their homes. It takes little time to care for the birds. There is little expense involved. You meet people of all ages and occupations, and the birds bring life and companionship into your home.

Feathered boarders bring good financial returns, too. Mrs. Gruesser charges thirty cents a day for boarding a parakeet, and twenty cents a day for boarding a canary, with a minimum fee of $1. A week's boarding amounts to a tidy sum, and thirty or forty feathered lodgers add up to a comfortable income. Mrs. Gruesser still considers her business merely a hobby. If she had extra help and wanted to give it more of her time, she feels it could easily be expanded. She advises all persons entering the "boarding" business to keep close records of their expenditures and receipts, so that they will know their exact percentage of profit at all times.

MRS. GRUESSER maintains you do not necessarily have to breed birds before you can board birds. Anyone who loves pets and has raised a bird of his own can board them, she says. But she insists that you must first read all you can on bird care, educating yourself thoroughly on the subject, even consulting local breeders for advice on handling birds.

She suggests reading the following books:

"Digest on the Diseases of Birds," by Robert Stroud.

"Diseases of Budgerigars," by Cessa Feyerabend.

"The Cult of the Budgerigar," by W. Watmough.

"Encyclopedia of Canaries," by Nola Miller Fogg.

"Canaries, Their Breeding and Management," by Milo G. Denlinger.

Mrs. Gruesser takes birds only by appointment. The owner must first call and arrange for a definite time to bring in the bird, within Mrs. Gruesser's working day. She discusses the bird's diet, noting the exact food it has been eating, so she can duplicate its rations. Mrs. Gruesser's own birds receive daily portions of two different kinds of seed along with gravel and dark greens.

She asks the owner to bring the bird in its own cage, and insists that the cage be clean. Sometimes owners will mistake dirt on a cage for rust—when she finds a dirty cage she cleans it herself with a detergent solution containing a disinfectant, charging the owner $1 for this extra service. Dirty cages spread disease; that is why Mrs. Gruesser is extra cautious about their condition.

Each new boarder is checked for disease as soon as it is brought in. Signs of illness are recognized through experience, Mrs. Gruesser says, but if you have studied Stroud's and Feyerabend's books and talked to other breeders, you will soon be able to detect common bird ailments. She has even gone a step further in this field and developed a fast-growing sideline to her breeding and boarding business—in doctoring birds. She has worked with paralyzed birds, massaging muscles and exercising them to regain strength. She has treated colds and pneumonia, set wings and legs that have been crushed and broken, and has even tried to re-grow feathers on a parakeet which lost all its plumage. Mrs. Gruesser warns that no one should attempt to doctor birds, however, unless he has bred birds for a number of years, and studied the subject extensively.

Mrs. Gruesser always keeps each new bird in "quarantine"—away from all the other boarders—for three days. If the bird shows no sign of illness by that time, its cage is then put in the dining room with the others. As another precaution she is constantly watchful for mice, for mice can contaminate bird seed, poisoning the birds, or can tire the birds into illness by keeping them awake at night. Mrs. Gruesser covers the grates of the cold air ducts in her home with one-eighth-inch hardware cloth, to prevent mice from entering upstairs rooms, and plugs all basement holes leading to the outside.

ROUTINE DAILY duties involved in boarding birds take little time, Mrs. Gruesser says. She changes the papers on the bottom of each cage daily, fills the dishes of seed, and places fresh greens on the side of the cages. Once a day she changes the birds' drinking water—twice a day in hot weather—and three times a week she sees that her boarders take baths. In the molting season she lets them have baths every day.

Mrs. Gruesser uses clear Pyrex containers for both drinking and bath water—small fountains for the drinking water, and shallow plates for baths. By using transparent containers she can easily detect dirt or contamination in the water.

Canaries do not have to be exercised, of course, but three times a day Mrs. Gruesser takes her parakeet boarders into the living room to let them play—and gain strength. She spreads papers on the floor, adds a small wooden gym, and leaves them alone. They are usually model guests, and seldom fly about the room or swoop onto the furniture.

Mrs. Gruesser's dining room is an excellent place for her boarding birds. (She keeps her own breeding stock in another room in the rear of her house.) It is light and well-ventilated, but free of drafts. Birds are very susceptible to colds and pneumonia, so this latter fact is particularly important. When birds are brought to and from her home Mrs. Gruesser insists that their cages be wrapped in clean cloths or light single blankets. She not only watches for drafts, but she also keeps the birds out of direct sunlight.

MRS. GRUESSER occasionally advertises her boarding business by inserting an advertisement in a local newspaper. Her best advertising has come through her "children," groups of boys and girls, in Scout and similar organizations, who have come to see her birds. Since 1950 she has talked to more than 3,000 Indianapolis youngsters between the ages of seven and eleven, taking them in groups of thirty or thirty-five, on tours of her home. Many weeks she has had young visitors five days in succession, and often they stay until late afternoon when Mr. Gruesser, who is an insurance superintendent, is coming in the door for his supper. Mrs. Gruesser gives each child one of her name cards, which they take home and show their parents. Their enthusiasm is contagious; she has heard that they talk birds for days—after breakfast, lunch, and supper, and many parents call a few days after their visit, using the information on the card, and inquiring about buying or boarding birds.

Mrs. Gruesser's first tour came from the tales two neighborhood children told their teacher about her "wonderful birds"—after their parents had bought them a pet. The teacher called Mrs. Gruesser to see if the whole class could come to see her birds, and the procession of tours was started.

For the last two years Mrs. Gruesser has had a booth at the Indianapolis Hobby Show, sponsored by one of Indianapolis's leading newspapers. The show is a large enterprise, attracting thousands of people, and each year it results in much new business for exhibitors. Each exhibitor pays a flat fee for his booth, depending on its size, but Mrs. Gruesser feels this expense is well justified. She advertises both her aviary and her boarding business at this show.

MRS. GRUESSER still has thirty-three birds of her own. She started breeding birds only eleven years ago, and one year she raised 193 birds. Breeding mainly to produce different varieties of song, she has won honors at several national and state bird shows.

Mrs. Gruesser is convinced that every person who sells birds should educate on bird care each time he makes a sale. She insists that at least two members of each family to whom she sells a bird come to select their pet. At such times she places eight to ten birds on a TV turntable in the living room, then allows her customers one and one-half hours to pick out their own bird. When a family has made a selection, she asks that one member come back a second time to pick up the bird and get detailed oral instructions on its care. When Mrs. Gruesser gets boarding birds that she has bred and sold she can almost always tell that her instructions have "paid off" in cleaner, healthier, and better-trained birds.

Birds in the dining toom and birds in the back room are not the only birds around the Gruesser household. Summer and winter Mrs. Gruesser plays hostess in her back yard to a flock of wild birds who discovered several years ago that she is a good provider. When she cleans her cages and seed trays she takes the left-over seed and places it on a feeder on her garage. In the spring she has seen wild birds not only bring hosts of relations to share her table, but she has seen them line up their young on the fence and carefully feed them expensive left-overs day after day.