6 hobbies that can make you money
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Exotic birds
Kathy Short has always had a thing for birds.

"I've had birds all my life," she says. "One leads to two leads to 10, and at some point you start wondering if you can do something with it."

She's not wondering anymore. As the owner of Exotics of the World, Short hand-raises between 250 and 400 cockatiels, parrots and other exotic birds annually at her home aviary in Woodinville, Wash. She then sells them wholesale to pet stores and collectors of show birds.

Short made the leap from infant day care to raising birds after her husband gave her an umbrella cockatoo. She started in her garage but quickly outgrew it. She now has 250 birds in aviary outbuildings but keeps the hatchlings inside her home.

"Birds are extremely messy," she warns.

Startup expenses for an exotic bird business can be steep: a pair of Moluccan cockatoos can run you $2,000, African gray parrots cost $1,200 to $2,000 a pair and individual cockatiels will set you back $500 apiece. Short owns 200 cockatiels, but only breeds 22 pairs at a time.

In addition to the cost of cages and food, exotic birds come with a range of exotic ailments. Securing the services of a good aviary veterinarian is as critical as it is costly; vaccinating five baby parrots against avian polyoma can run $155.

But pedigreed exotic birds also fetch a handsome price, even wholesale. Short says she'll sell a single baby Moluccan cockatoo to a pet store for $1,000, which in turn will sell it to the public for between $2,000 and $2,400.

In fact, Short says her biggest business obstacle is the declining number of independent pet stores that serve as her customer base. Building a stable list of wholesale clients and breeding birds that sell are keys to success in the bird world.

She advises against buying your breeding stock over the Internet.

"People don't tell the truth when you buy birds off the Internet; they're usually selling them for a reason," says Short. "Over the years, I've found it's almost better to start with individual birds and pair them yourself instead of buying what they call 'proven pairs.'"

Exotic birds business

• Skills: knowledge of care, feeding and breeding of exotic birds. • Market: wholesale to pet stores, retail to breeders and the public. • Opportunities for growth: depend on whether pet store consolidation hampers growth locally.

Personal shopper
Twenty-five years ago on a whim, Ellen Macklin bought a computer and a handful of business cards and became one of Boston's most successful personal shoppers.

A former art teacher, Macklin had what it takes to make it in her new field: infallible taste, an outgoing personality, a love of shopping and a fiercely independent spirit.

She was one of four personal shoppers listed in the phone book then. The other three weren't in business long.

In recent years, the personal shopping field has expanded greatly, or so the get-rich-quick scam artists would have us believe. Macklin receives a flood of resumes sent her way by innocent wannabes who've been led on -- for a fee, of course -- by phony placement specialists.