4 comments about Parrots.

1. I like this book. It help me to know more about parrot.



2. PARROTS by Mattie Sue Athan is a good short and concise manual to read if you don't have time to read any of the other excellent books by Athan and other bird experts (Matthew Vriends, Sally Blanchard). She covers all the basics about parrots - a family that includes everything from Budgies to Hyacinth Macaws. Every section includes a `checklist' so if you are really in a hurry, you can skip over fully reading the chapters that cover purchasing, care, feeding, and housing.
   
   Quite frankly, I consider parrots or any pet for that matter such a worth while investment, I have read everything I can and talked to many experts to ensure the best possible outcome with my parrots. I don't have much use for this book, preferring instead Athan's more comprehensive book GUIDE TO COMPANION PARROT BEHAVIOR. However, if you have not yet made a parrot purchase and wish to become more informed before you do so, or, if you are in a hurry, or have limited time for reading, this might be the book to throw in your luggage or carry in your brief case. Just remember, having an animal companion is something like raising children or a good garden - you get out of it what you put into it. If you can't take the time to become informed now, how will you manage later?



3. Author and parrot expert Mattie Sue Athan has hit another home run with her newest book "Parrots." This handy reference book is described as "a complete pet owners manual," and the description certainly describes this book to a tee.

   This is a great book for people who are just starting out with a new pet parrot, and it's a wonderful primer for anyone who is even considering the ownership of one of these complex, but rewarding birds. It's also a great reference book for people who consider themselves expert parrot owners.

   The author leads the reader through every phase of parrot ownership - from selection, purchase, care, training, housing, and feeding of these lovely animals. She imparts parrot care wisdom with clarity, intelligence, and humor.

   The book is attractive, well-organized, and packed with interesting sidebars and illustrations. The price is marvelously inexpensive for the amount of valuable information that is shared. It's the sort of book that I wish had been available years ago, when I first started my life-long relationship with pet parrots. The invaluable information in this book would have saved me hours of concern and confusion. The book is a blessing and an indespensible part of any parrot owner's bookshelf. If you can buy only one book on parrots, this is the one! But be warned: Mattie Sue Athan's parrot books are like the famous potato chips - you cannot stop at just one!




4. This is an absolute must for everyone considering purchasing a parrot for a companion. It offers practical information about the reality of owning a parrot and the responsibilities that go along with that relationship. Mattie Sue Athan's recommendations and criteria for selecting a breeder/dealer is sound and will make a number of potential parrot owners rethink their selected source. Even those who already own parrots will benefit from this newest project. Definetly a book for every parrot owner's library.

2 comments about Simon & Schuster's Guide to Pet Birds.

1. This is one the best books that I have in my possession. It provides anyone with excellent visual pictures of the actual birds and provides general information for each. The information is fairly good but limited to a single page for each bird, but is fairly comprehensive in regard to each species and sub-species. I highly recommend this book.



2. Covers history of aviculture, caging, taming, & breeding including setting up mixed species aviaries.Tells country of origin, habitat, foods, whether they will sing/talk or both. Also covers how they do in captivity with children and other pets.Very informative for the person trying to decide what pet they want or whether they want to set upbreeding colonies. Something for everyone!

1 comments about Zebra Finches.

1. This was one of the first books on zebra finches I checked out from the library, when I first started getting interested in the birds, and it helped me immensely. It explained why certain foods were necessary, and what vitamins can be found in what, it gave me the information I needed to know what size to make my cage. It's been a great help to me, and now I've had my birds for over a week and they're wonderful and happy.

No comments about Lovebirds: A Guide to Caring for Your Lovebird (Complete Care Made Easy).

5 comments about The Eclectus: A Complete Guide.

1. I found this book to be a great overview that saw me through every stage of my Eclectus flock -- from acquisition and housing to breeding. I've appended the summary on the back cover:

   Quote

   Roger Sweeney has spent several years at various zoological and bird gardens in the U nited Kingdom. In 1989 he became Livestock Manager at "Birdworld", the United Kingdom's largest bird gardens. While at Birdworld success was achieved with a wide diversity of species, including Parrots, Softbills, Pheasants, Ratites, Penguins, Spoonbills, Wading birds and Birds of Prey.

   The Eclectus Parrot has been bred at Birdworld consistently over the last 10 years and considerable work has been carried out into its incubation and neo-natal care.

   In 1993 Roger became a full time consultant at "Birds International", one of the world's largest breeding and research centers located in the Philippines. This facility houses what is surely the world's largest collection of captive Eclectus Parrots!

   While at "Birds International" Roger was also responsible for the management of some of the world's rarest birds including the Spix Macaw, Mount Apo Lorikeet, Sumba Hornbill and Palm Cockatoo.

   As of mid 1994 Riger has been retained as a consultant to "Loro Parque".

   Unquote




2. If you are looking for a book on keeping Eclectus parrots as pets, you will probably find this book disappointing, although it does contain limited information on the subject. (Unfortunately, no book has been written that includes extensive information on Eclectus as pets.) However if you are interested in the natural history of Eclectus parrots or in breeding Eclectus, this book should be part of your library. The chapter on natural and avicultural history is especially strong and brings some sense to the confusing topic of Eclectus subspecies.



3. The book provides some good and useful information about Eclectus Parrots but not enough to justify the price of the book. It is not a big book at all. The book does not go into much detail about things. For example, the author mentions the importance of having the right size and type of perch but never really says what that is specifically. How big around should the perch be? He doesn't say. If money is no big deal then this is a good book to add to your collection of books about Eclectus parrots.

   If you are interested in becoming an Eclectus breeder this book might be worth while. Breeding seems to be the main focus of the book.

   For dealing with parrot training and parrot problems and such I recommend "Guide to a Well-Behaved Parrot" by Mattie Sue Athan. There are some things I don't agree with in the book like her recommendation not to carry your bird around on your shoulder but there is a lot of good stuff in the book.




4. I bought this book with the expectations of helping me prepare to train a baby eclectus, and was very disappointed. This book covered more information about the history and the anatomy of this parrot, rather than providing any helpful information for an owner to help understand and deal with the behavior and training of this bird. I have purchased other parrot training books that may not apply specifically to the eclecuts, but it does cover more useful information. The book does have good pictures if that is what you are looking for.



5. THis book is more useful for its' pictures than it is for the information on dealing with an electus parrot. It does not go into detail about any of the topics that it should cover. It gives you more information on the history and anatomy of the parrot, than it does on this parrot's behavior. Nor does the book provide any training techniques or answers to behavior problems. I think you would be better off buying a general parrot training and behavior book, than buying this guide to the eclectus.

3 comments about All About Breeding Lovebirds.

1. I bought this book hoping it would go a little in more depth on what to expect when eggs are laid and what happens when they begin to hatch but it is basically a book that tells you a little of everything about lovebirds. The photo's were nice and the information was good but it wasn't what I expected.



2. I read the book from cover to cover and found it to be very helpful in points about breeding lovebirds. Still finding out the sex of the lovebirds seems to be somewhat of a mystery, I foudn the book to be very entertaining and useful in what I was looking for. I would recommend this book to anyone.



3. ALL ABOUT BREEDING LOVEBIRDS, by Mervyn Roberts includes a nice section on Nutrition that covers what the little guys eat in the wild, where they apparently behave much like Crows in the States and plow up newly planted items in your garden as well as attacking mature fruits and seeds. Roberts book does not go into nearly as much genetic detail as Dr. D'Angieri's ATLAS or John Coborn's PROFESSIONAL BOOK OF LOVEBIRDS but it is accessible, and it includes many beautiful photographs (many of them black and white), and a great deal of information about breeding. The book is a little bit older than the two mentioned above, but the information included is not dated. I gave my granddaughter Anne Appleyard's THE LOVEBIRD HANDBOOK, a newer publication that covers everything a 12-year old needs to know.
   
   Roberts includes an annotated list of other books on Lovebirds in the last pages of the book but as his book was published in 1983, publications printed since then won't be included, such as Ann Appleyard's LOVEBIRD HANDBOOK which I have found very helpful.

2 comments about Rare and Elusive Birds of North America.

1. Taking picture of the most rare and shy birds in North America is not an easy tasking, not even for an avid birder and expert in the field. Well, William Burt is an expert in the field, and it took him over 10 years of hard work to research, track down, and photograph America's most elusive birds. Burt has not only delivered a full package of top quality photographs, but he has written an excellent story of his episodes of wandering through endless praries and dark swamps to find these birds. For anyone who loves birds, or loves an adventure, this book is a must.



2. I bought this book as a gift for birders, and they really loved it. It consists of photographs taken of some of the most elusive birds in North America.

2 comments about Guide to Owning a Zebra Finch (Guide to Owning).

1. The book is a thorough owner's manual for people who own zebra finches . It is an excellent book and arrived on the date projected .



2. This book is very beautiful, colorful and easy to read. You will find everything you need to know to keep your zebra finch as happy as you want it to be.

3 comments about Conures.

1. Quite a nice book to read but so far out of date to really be a waste of time for the breeder or anybody seriously considering breeding conures. The Author had not heard of DNA sexing which is now the considered norm. This fact immediately made the book obsolete as far as I was concerned.



2. This is a good book in some of it's own ways. I think it should have more info about each of the different conures. I own a pair of green cheeks and they are not rare nor are they expensive. They are the cheapest of the conures. Also they are really sweet and not loud at all. They do get nippy in thier older age. The over all of the book was pretty nice though.



3. I found this book was very nice to have before I got my Peachfront, it was very informative about the different species and their desirable and undesirable traits. It also helped to decide what cage and supplies to buy. Don't let this be your sole source of information, however, after getting your conure.

2 comments about How to Attract Birds (Ortho Library).

1. Why is it that books like "How to Attract Birds" recommend putting up a separate squirrel feeder to distract those fuzzy-tailed rodents from gobbling up the contents of your bird feeders? All this does is attract more squirrels to your yard, who proceed to devour both the contents of the squirrel feeder and the bird feeders.
   
   Or in the case of our old house in Detroit, the squirrel feeder on the fence attracted the rats from our neighbor's woodpile, and the squirrels very wisely stuck to the bird feeders.
   
   Any self-respecting book on attracting birds also has to include information on how to discourage unwanted seed hustlers such as squirrels, chipmunks, starlings, and (in the case of our new home), raccoons, and bears. Authors John Dennis and Michael McKinley do their best in Ortho's "How to Attract Birds," but they tend to emphasize the positive (attracting favorite birds) rather than the negative (discouraging unwanted visitors).
   
   This 96-page book is divided up into sections on "Birds in the Wild," "Planting for Birds," "Providing Food," "Providing Water," "Providing Housing," and "Attracting Your Favorite Birds." The text is an easy read, and there are lots of color photos and diagrams.
   
   Be sure to read the inset on page 53, "Protecting Your Guests." There are types of feed that shouldn't be used in the summer, e.g. peanuts and coconut because they can't be digested by nestlings of certain species. You also might want to avoid certain ornamental plants with berries that ferment, intoxicating their feathered diners and causing them to fly "into houses or into oncoming traffic."
   
   Overall "How to Attract Birds" is a very useful book, even though it doesn't satisfy my quest to build an effective squirrel-proof feeder.



2. The editorial review basically says it all. I'm using the book quite a bit -- I'm trying to attract birds that will eat insect pests. Few other sources have such detailed information about feeding habits, and the information on houses is quite adequate, although you can find birdhouse designs which are much more visually appealing (to humans!) in other books. The one thing I really wish they had done is to put the pests in the index; finding what pests birds like particular to eat requires tedious entry-by-entry searching.