Parrot Books!

[zERo]

I thought it would be informative and fun to make a thread showing pictures of what older and newer parrots books have to say.
Maybe I’ll bring going over excellent or poor informations.
I guess I won’t say the names of the books or authors? Unless the information is good and positive.
This first book is from 1996 and while a lot of the information is okay, they included how much some of these parrots will cost which doesn’t apply to nowadays a bit!
I guess it’s okay, this book is called The Parrot written by Arthur Freud.
I feel like this diagram is a little lacking.

I find the middle paragraph a bit funny, it’s listing quiet or generally quiet species. Now I’m not saying female Eclectus aren’t wonderful BUT! Their screams are deafening 🤭

I don’t think this has poor information but why include prices? They’ll not apply to the reader in 5-10 years.

Another price thing, the Hyacinth!

Next, I think this list is extremely minimal, shouldn’t it say at least, the very least 4-5 different perches? It says in the perch section to offer a variety, seems contradictory. It does say to have a first aid kit too, just later in the book.

I just found it cool that an older book included sprouting.

That’s all for now! I have 20 or so books so if you guys like this I’ll do more!

 

[LaManuka]

Lories and lorikeets "fairly quiet"????? Well maybe on a purely decibel level, but for chasing 'round the house and demanding your attention every waking moment and bouncing around the place all day on that high octane sugar diet - you gotta be kidding me!!! 😝 You can forget about a sleep in in the morning or a nap in afternoon with a lorikeet indahouse - but I do love mine to bits so it's a very small sacrifice to make 💖

 

[zERo]

Lories and lorikeets "fairly quiet"????? Well maybe on a purely decibel level, but for chasing 'round the house and demanding your attention every waking moment and bouncing around the place all day on that high octane sugar diet - you gotta be kidding me!!! 😝 You can forget about a sleep in in the morning or a nap in afternoon with a lorikeet indahouse - but I do love mine to bits so it's a very small sacrifice to make 💖

I didn’t comment on their loudness since I’m not blessed enough to own one 😍
I think besides how loud they are as far as decibels go, should be how much they scream or chatter too.

 

[LaManuka]

I'm sure they meant it as far as general loudness is concerned, but let me tell you Lovejoy's voice gets pretty loud for such a little bird. And then there's him crashing and bashing his stainless steel bells and various toys against the sides of his stainless steel cage - ain't no afternoon naps happening with THAT going on. My fault entirely for buying those sorts of toys for him but he does love 'em!

 

[zERo]

I'm sure they meant it as far as general loudness is concerned, but let me tell you Lovejoy's voice gets pretty loud for such a little bird. And then there's him crashing and bashing his stainless steel bells and various toys against the sides of his stainless steel cage - ain't no afternoon naps happening with THAT going on. My fault entirely for buying those sorts of toys for him but he does love 'em!

Yeah probably so. They should have a section about how likely each species is to be loud while playing!😆
Tom had a mini maraca that he loves throwing back and forth and back and forth and back and forth 🥲
My mistake, I bought it for him!

 

[zERo]

This next book is The Parrot Companion by Rosemary Low who is generally spoken well of I think.
It was written in 2006, so one of the newest ones I have.
First, I just wanna address, I feel like this lady is asking for it 😅

This says there are 250 species of parrots but if I remember right aren’t there 350? There’s no way 100 new species have been discovered since 2006 right?

This says budgies can’t be tamed if they’re adults and 5-6 weeks old babies should be sought.
Hedwig is 3 years old, I got her at 2 and she’s tame. The tamest budgie I’ve ever owned was Falkor, bless her soul, and she was an unknown age.

This next one says that once Hawk heads turns 3 they become aggressive but I feel like the members who own them don’t have ‘unsuitable’ birds?
Also, this bird is so healthy look, it’s feathers glow!

These two go over how macaws are typically not treated correctly and implies that macaws shouldn’t be kept as pets? I think many people impulse buy birds and not just macaws.
I feel like many of our macaw owning members provide them with wonderful environments!

These two are toy pictures in the book and I feel like both are unsafe. They both have dangerous clips and the bells look like toe/tongue traps.

Next, are those cheerios?

This wouldn’t be the authors fault but that middle Grey looks rough.

She says not to feed birds shelled feed grade peanuts 👏

This wouldn’t stop any of my birds from landing on me 🤭

Next, she’s recommending grit? I think she should explain if the grit has pebbles/rocks in it, it shouldn’t be fed to parrots. Grit with oyster shell/charcoal/calcium is fine though.

This is the authors 40 year old Amazon and he looks stunning!

Next, she seems to not love pellets but then says they should make up no more than 70% of the diet? Seems contradictory.
She does have great advice on many individual fruits/veg/seed/nuts etc though.

And finally, I just love this picture!

 

[Rozalka]

This says there are 250 species of parrots but if I remember right aren’t there 350? There’s no way 100 new species have been discovered since 2006 right?

I can explain this one - the classification keeps changing and there are more and more species without discovering new ones

I have just one book in English at home but maybe later I'll post something from it (it's about conures)

 

[Keet_Krazy]

Yeah, I agree that they didn't necessarily discover more species, they learnt to identify them better. For example, if I am remembering correctly, Grey-Headed Parakeets and Slaty-Heads used to be believe to be the same species, now we know they're separate.

I'll try and remember to pull out one of my budgie books later

 

[zERo]

This next one is, I think, one of the oldest ones I have but I’m not sure.
I can’t include the name or author of this one. There’s very little good advice.
First, this whole section is a great way to never see your bird again!
It says at the end, don’t free fly your bird because it’s dangerous but then before that explains how to do it?
It says take the bird outside with it wings clipped daily and eventually, while it’s flights grow out it will recognize the yard as it’s turf?!

Next, I feel like the recommended cage size is too small.

I don’t really know what to say!

This whole guide to taming is just cruel, of course the bird is becoming ‘tame’ if you’re forcing it. It just knows it can’t tel you no 🙁

I’m sure this cockatiel is not becoming tame, more like it simply can’t put up a fight after 15 minutes of struggling.

Overall a not so great book. The diet section was lacking, saying they only need seed, greens, cuttlebone, grit, and other veg if they’ll eat them.
I’m not even sure it covered toys 🙁

 

[Keet_Krazy]

It says at the end, don’t free fly your bird because it’s dangerous but then before that explains how to do it?
It says take the bird outside with it wings clipped daily and eventually, while it’s flights grow out it will recognize the yard as it’s turf?!

They're parrots, not pigeons 🤦‍♀️

I don’t really know what to say!

This whole guide to taming is just cruel, of course the bird is becoming ‘tame’ if you’re forcing it. It just knows it can’t tel you no 🙁

I’m sure this cockatiel is not becoming tame, more like it simply can’t put up a fight after 15 minutes of struggling.

That's called flooding not "taming"
I truely don't remember either of my books being as bad as this one, it's terrible!

 

[zERo]

They're parrots, not pigeons 🤦‍♀️

That's called flooding not "taming"
I truely don't remember either of my books being as bad as this one, it's terrible!

Yeah this is probably the worst one I think. Most of the other are at least decent!

 

[Keet_Krazy]

The book that started my budgie uh... obsession (*not sayings is good or accurate but it's responsible for starting my interest in budgies). I believe it's from 1988 or earlier.
It has good bits and bad.
I like some of the stuff on housing, except that it says round cages are ok now.

The section on toys again has a few good things such as mentioning dangers and a bit more info on mirrors other use them or not.

No, every budgie will not want your big scary finger touching their head/face.

At most eight to ten days????

The diet section was pretty long and I don't have a lot of comments just cause I've researched budgies diet so much I can probably find fault in 90% of the contents. And it's kind of confusing cause it say mostly seeds, then encourages greens, seeding grass, sprouts and soaked seed, then seems to think fresh food is highly likely to cause diarrhea and should be stopped if that happens?? No, they do not need grit.

 

[zERo]

The book that started my budgie uh... obsession (*not sayings is good or accurate but it's responsible for starting my interest in budgies). I believe it's from 1988 or earlier.
It has good bits and bad.
I like some of the stuff on housing, except that it says round cages are ok now.View attachment 49774 View attachment 49769
The section on toys again has a few good things such as mentioning dangers and a bit more info on mirrors other use them or not.

View attachment 49773
No, every budgie will not want your big scary finger touching their head/face.
View attachment 49771
At most eight to ten days????
View attachment 49770

The diet section was pretty long and I don't have a lot of comments just cause I've researched budgies diet so much I can probably find fault in 90% of the contents. And it's kind of confusing cause it say mostly seeds, then encourages greens, seeding grass, sprouts and soaked seed, then seems to think fresh food is highly likely to cause diarrhea and should be stopped if that happens?? No, they do not need grit.
View attachment 49772

Wow the part that says they should be tamed in 8-10 days really surprised me!

All of my budgies are not okay with being pet and I don’t think most will be, even hand fed budgies.

And feeding grit! Lots of the older books recommend this 😦

 

[Keet_Krazy]

This is from Budgerogars: All you need to know by Michael S. Christian. It's hard for me to pinpoint a date as mine is a revised edition.
It's centered around breeding (Show budgies in particular), so most of this is from the small pet budgie section. I like this book because it helps my understanding of genetics and mutations.

Cage size is small but not terrible.

Love the recommendation for large cage and/or out time!

I've made it known about my opinion on girl budgies and wasn't going to show anything in regards to that, but I appreciate the not caging girls together here.

Now the toys. I don't want to jump and say this is terrible advice straight up, because if you think about it the toys that were available at the writing of this book were likely exactly as described. Absolutely not beneficial for budgies. But the mirror advice is no good.

I really have to ask if anyone has fed their budgie silverbeet and if it's really a magical healthy version of millet??

😟

 

[zERo]

Only a mirror type toy? How boring!

It does have some okay advice at least but I feel like trading birds is just bad.
The last book I reviewed said that too.

 

[Terry57]

Nyla, this is a great thread! Not everyone who has parrots realize that older books don't reflect how we care for parrots now. Seeing it like this makes the differences really stand out, especially with your added thoughts on certain sections.

This next one says that once Hawk heads turns 3 they become aggressive but I feel like the members who own them don’t have ‘unsuitable’ birds?
Also, this bird is so healthy look, it’s feathers glow!
View attachment 49728

I have to comment on this one. My HH, Darwin was 23 when she joined our family, and we've had her for 9 years. She was never a pet until she came here, she'd been a breeder all her life.
She is one of our sweetest parrots, and she loves Reg and will step up for him. She likes me for scritches and singing and dancing with her.
She has never bitten either of us, nor shown any aggression.

These two are toy pictures in the book and I feel like both are unsafe. They both have dangerous clips and the bells look like toe/tongue traps.
View attachment 49732
View attachment 49733

Those are terribly unsafe, oh my gosh! It's incredible how far parrot care has come from then to now.

This wouldn’t stop any of my birds from landing on me 🤭
View attachment 49737

HAHA! It's like trying to stop a train, not happening when the bird is that close.

 

[Terry57]

I have a book about budgies packed away somewhere that I got when I was around 6, I hope I can find it during our reno. It would be 54 years old and I'll post it if we find it

 

[zERo]

Nyla, this is a great thread! Not everyone who has parrots realize that older books don't reflect how we care for parrots now. Seeing it like this makes the differences really stand out, especially with your added thoughts on certain sections.





I have to comment on this one. My HH, Darwin was 23 when she joined our family, and we've had her for 9 years. She was never a pet until she came here, she'd been a breeder all her life.
She is one of our sweetest parrots, and she loves Reg and will step up for him. She likes me for scritches and singing and dancing with her.
She has never bitten either of us, nor shown any aggression.



Those are terribly unsafe, oh my gosh! It's incredible how far parrot care has come from then to now.



HAHA! It's like trying to stop a train, not happening when the bird is that close.

I thought I remember you saying your HH was a sweet bird! It’s a stereotype I’ve heard often but the HH I got to hold at a parrot store was a sweet heart too!

Those are terribly unsafe, oh my gosh! It's incredible how far parrot care has come from then to now.

I know right! It’s crazy.

 

[Terry57]

I thought I remember you saying your HH was a sweet bird! It’s a stereotype I’ve heard often but the HH I got to hold at a parrot store was a sweet heart too!


I know right! It’s crazy.

I find this so interesting and sad at the same time, knowing what we know now. This is why I think forums and bird groups are so important for our birds. Books become outdated, while we do not.

 

[wrench13]

So very much has changed in many aspects of aviculture both here in the US and abroad. thats not to say there is zero to be learned in reading a 25 yr old parrot care book or reference journal. As with most information, consider it carefully.