A Beginners Guide to Parakeets [Paperback]

Nikki Moustaki (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

This book, illustrated with many photos and drawings, presents sensible, easy-to-follow recommendations about selecting and caring for parakeets, or budgerigars. Topics covered include natural history, feeding, breeding, and health care.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

T.F.H. Publications, Inc. has teamed up with Animal Planet(tm), the only television network devoted to the unique bonds between humans and animals, to present an exciting new series of comprehensive guides to superior pet care.

Each book in the Animal Planet(tm) Pet Care Library offers incredible value, featuring:

* 112 pages of all-new, current information from pet care and animal experts

* No canned text--content text is newly written for each book

* Family-friendly design with over 60 full-color photographs plus helpful tip boxes

* Includes advice on feeding, housing, grooming, training, health care, and fun activities --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover

Parakeets didn't get to be the world's most popular companion birds by accident. They are friendly, intelligent, clownish birds who can sing and talk, offering keepers both beauty and entertainment. Relatively easy to care for and tame, they are also a popular choice for beginners to bird keeping. If you want to introduce this graceful little bird to your home, Parakeets will provide all the information you'll need to keep your pet healthy and happy throughout his lifetime, including expert advice on all aspects of proper housing, nutrition, health care, and training. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Tfh Pubns Inc (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876667493
• ISBN-13: 978-0876667491
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,657,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Home & Garden > Animal Care & Pets > Birds

More About the Author

With more than a half a million pet books in print and hundreds of articles on pets and their care and training to her credit, Nikki Moustaki is considered one of the country's leading pet experts. She also is an award winning freelance writer, animal trainer, and pet industry expert, and her tireless work feeding shelter pets with her innovative website, The Pet Postcard Project, along with her hands-on rescue efforts and vocal advocacy for homeless animals has led her to be dubbed "Saint Nik."

Nikki Moustaki is also considered an "Urban Dog Guru," specializing in training city dogs for their particular needs. She has published more than 42 books of nonfiction, primarily on the care and training of pets. Her pet books and articles have been translated into 5 languages. Along with working as a dog trainer, Nikki is one of the country's foremost experts on parrots, having authored more than 24 books on birds and their care and training. Her expertise in pets ranges from dogs and cats to fish and hermit crabs, and everything else in between.

An energetic, lively and personable TV and radio guest, Nikki currently hosts a pet-related cable show on The Beach Channel in Miami Beach, and she hosted, co-produced, and co-wrote the national NBC/MSN show, The Celebrity Pet Dish, with her Miniature Schnauzer, Pepper, as her co-host. Nikki has appeared on CNN, Howard Stern (XM Sirius Radio), NBC News, FOX News, CBS News, Martha Stewart Radio, BBC Radio, Animal Radio, Pet Talk Radio, and Talkin' Pets Radio, among others, and was the animal handler for the second season of the Tony Danza Show, where she often appeared on-air along with her parrot and dog. Nikki has also been featured in The New York Times, Glamour Magazine, The Humane Society Magazine, and Dog Fancy, among others.

Nikki also writes, collaborates and co-writes books on a variety of topics. She also created a canine focused blues album, Dog Training Tracks: A Musical No Bark Solution: Blues for Buster, for "alarm barkers" and dogs who suffer from separation anxiety.

A self-professed "pet product geek," Nikki also enjoys working as a consultant for pet product manufacturers, helping them brand, position, and develop their products and succeed in social media. She has worked on projects ranging from microchips to dog toys to pet food research and development. Her many years of expertise with pet products at both the consumer and the trade level give her unique insight, and she is able to communicate about pets and pet products in any medium.

Nikki's two primary interests - writing and animals - collide in her work, allowing her to travel through both the landscape of the literary writer and the interesting world of the pet industry. She writes feature articles for many pet-related magazines, including Dog Fancy, Popular Dogs, Dogs USA, CATS Magazine, Cat Fancy, Pet Product News, Bird Talk, Birds USA, and Water Garden News, among others. Nikki has written for Latina Magazine, the Village Voice, Jane, Time To Spa Magazine, and the National Endowment for the Humanities Magazine.

Her popular websites include The Pet Postcard Project, a fun and charitable site that raises awareness, food, and funds for shelter animals, and has raised over 120,000,000 pieces of kibble for shelter pets. The site has no advertising - all of her efforts are to help feed the homeless pets.

Nikki holds an M.A. in creative writing from New York University, an M.F.A. in creative writing from Indiana University, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from NYU. She taught creative writing at several universities for 10 years, including both NYU and IU, as well as at The New School in New York City. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant in poetry, and has been awarded many national prizes and honors for her writing, including two Pushcart Press nominations, and her poetry and essays have also appeared in various anthologies and college textbooks, including Poetry After 9-11: An Anthology of New York Poets, and America Now, chosen by Robert Atwan, editor of the Best American Essays series.

Before beginning her career as a freelance writer and editor, Nikki worked as an acquisitions and development editor at Macmillan Publishing and IDG Books Worldwide, Inc., where she specialized in the non-fiction market and edited more than 60 non-fiction titles. Nikki splits her time between New York City and Miami Beach with her two rescued Schnauzers, Pepper and Zoey, one rescued Schnoodle named Pearl, and two parrots. When she's not writing, you can find Nikki rocking out on the drums, teaching herself 80s metal on her Gibson guitar, rescuing dogs from the shelter, and working on her various charity projects.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, Intelligent, User Friendly, May 6, 2007

By 

Lucian F. Savage "Lucian of the Savage Variety" (Beaverton, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Parakeets (Animal Planet Pet Care Library) (Hardcover)

Knowing next to nothing about birds of any variety, much less Parakeets, I picked up this book as a precursor to purchasing my avian friend. I found all of the content very comprehensive, the author outlined all of the preliminary basics to owning and caring for a bird. This book I feel is safe for all age levels as it gives easy to use and find information. The images and lay out of the book are lively and fun (if you have a short attention span). I felt all of my questions were answered, I had a great understanding of what is required in the diet of a parakeet as well as all of the do's and dont's of a parakeet owner.

I would not recommend this book to anyone looking for advanced information such as how to breed your bird, in-depth medical references, etc. I feel also the author has a slight habit towards redundancy but in most cases it is on/over safety information (which is to say it is good things to know).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything a new parakeet owner needs to know, and easy to read, May 26, 2008

By 

mathew (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Parakeets (Animal Planet Pet Care Library) (Hardcover)

As a new parakeet owner, I wanted to make sure I had all the essential information, so I browsed a lot of books, including the same author's "Parakeets for Dummies".

While there are a lot of other excellent informative books out there, I wanted a book that would be appealing to read and clearly and concisely written, so that I'd actually read it all and absorb the information.

That's where this book wins. The design is beautiful and modern, with full color throughout and photographs on almost every page. In spite of being as many pages as most other books on the subject, it felt like an effortless read.

All the basics are covered--choosing and positioning a cage, nutrition, selecting a bird, taming, daily care, looking out for illness, safe and dangerous foods, and so on. This isn't the book for a serious budgerigar breeder, but if you think you might want a pet parakeet, buy this and read on!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, especially for beginners, March 27, 2007

By 

Abigail Cooper (Highland Park, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Parakeets (Animal Planet Pet Care Library) (Hardcover)

I was thinking about getting a parakeet so I bought this book and it taught me everything I ever wanted to know about what having a parakeet would entail. I did notice there was nothing about breeding parakeets, but as a new parakeet owner that is far from my top concern at this point. Everything in the book was pertinent to what I needed to know. There was a great chapter on setting up your home for the parakeet and everything you would need to get and how to make your home safe, as well as a chapter about all the different things you can feed your parakeet (including several easy recipes that your parakeet is guaranteed to enjoy!) There are too many parakeet owners out there who neglect their birds, and this book teaches you how to be a great owner instead. I know that when my hand-fed baby parakeet comes home with me in a few weeks the knowledge I gained from this book will make me a great budgie owner!