No products in the cart.
About Us
ABOUT US
Exotic Pet Outlet takes pride in maintaining hospital-grade cleanliness and well-stocked shelves featuring the highest quality products. Exotic Pet Outlet even carries its own exclusive line of items, including a gourmet seed mix specially formulated by the founder. One of the standout features of the store is its impressive TOY WALL, showcasing hundreds of handcrafted bird toys. Services offered at Exotic Pet Outlet include bird boarding and grooming.
The staff at Exotic Pet Outlet is both knowledgeable and approachable, with extensive experience in avian care. Team members are well-equipped to answer a wide range of bird-related questions, including those about behavior and nutrition. Rather than encouraging impulse purchases, Exotic Pet Outlet carefully screens prospective bird owners to ensure the bird species they’re interested in aligns with their lifestyle.
Over the years, Exotic Pet Outlet has placed thousands of birds in loving homes and built a loyal customer base that spans nearly thirty years. The business was founded on a straightforward principle: offer healthy birds and premium products, keep prices competitive, and deliver the cleanest environment and most attentive service possible.
MEET Carlos
Carlos Domingo, the founder of Exotic Pet Outlet, is a respected aviculturist and an award-winning figure in the pet retail industry. His passion for birds began in his childhood in Cuba, where he and his father would catch wild songbirds—called “mariposa” in Cuba—and craft cages from twigs. These early experiences ignited his lifelong love for birds. After moving to the United States at the age of seven, Carlos parents gifted him two canaries, which he cared for devotedly while immersing himself in bird knowledge throughout his youth.
In his early twenties, Carlos bought two parrots from a local pet shop. At the time—during the 1980s—many birds in stores were either imported or illegally smuggled, often carrying diseases that led to early deaths. Tragically, both of Carlos parrots suffered this fate. This difficult experience taught him the vital importance of purchasing birds only from clean, trustworthy sources.
Frustrated by the poor conditions he encountered in most bird stores, Carlos began networking with others in the aviculture community and discovered the location of the main quarantine station—a key distribution point for birds during an era when domestic breeding was still rare. This search for better standards and healthier birds was a major step toward what would eventually become Exotic Pet Outlet.
That’s when the vision of owning his own bird store first entered Carlos’s mind. Now armed with the whereabouts of the quarantine station, Carlos began purchasing more and more birds from there. Since parrot-taming techniques were often inhumane at the time, Carlos relied on his own experience and intuition to develop gentler, more effective taming methods.
Once the birds could be safely handled, Carlos began reselling them—initially out of his home and later at a local swap meet. Although he was struggling to make ends meet and attending college full-time, by 1984 Carlos had saved enough money to open his first store. As his passion for exotic birds deepened, he sought innovative ways to improve breeding practices, develop more humane taming methods, and even began creating custom products for birds. He eventually designed ceiling-hung perches in his store that allowed birds to interact freely with customers. The birds thrived, business flourished, and more store locations were added.
Since the beginning, locations have changed and operations have improved, but Carlos’s dedication to enhancing the lives of companion birds has remained constant.
Carlos continues to lead Exotic Pet Outlet to new heights and is deeply committed to promoting the joys and benefits of having companion animals. He remains active in the community, hosting bird shows both in his stores and at local schools. Carlos also continues to study avian care and regularly speaks at trade shows, bird clubs, and pet fairs. He is currently working on expanding the Exotic Pet Outlet product line and developing educational programs to teach children about pet birds.
Carlos is a member of Parrots International, a conservation group dedicated to protecting endangered birds in the wild. Recently, he traveled to Brazil with the group’s directors to assist in efforts to save the Hyacinth Macaws. Carlos has two pet Hyacinths, Blue and Xena, who were married on Animal Planet in 2003.
