Customer Reviews

Hand-Feeding and Raising Baby Birds: Breeding, Hand-Feeding, Care, and Management

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book takes the novice from the very beginning. It covers every aspect of handfeeding. Concise, easy to read, with great colour pictures. I would recommend this book to the beginning handfeeder as well as those who are experienced.

I have found this book to be very informative. novists as well as experienced persons can find answers to any questions. i found this book easy to read.

It's a good book and easy to read, but it's more focussed on professional breeding than it is for people who just bought a bird and want more information about raising and hand-feeding. Even though it's good reading material.

Matthew Vriends HAND-FEEDING AND RAISING BABY BIRDS is of some use to me although I prefer Gayle Souck's PARROT BREEDER'S ANSWER BOOK. Vriend's book is not nearly as comprehensive, he goes deep whereas Soucek goes broad. However, I appreciate the detailed sections on the selection, care and maintenance of incubators including photos of the various types of incubators as well as text describing air filtration systems (`still air' and ventilation), automatic egg turners versus doing it yourself, and temperature, light and humidity considerations. Interestingly, neither author cites the other even tho Barron's produced both books and they are somewhat complementary.

As well as incubation, Vriends book covers feeding in great detail with numerous photos of very small chicks being hand fed. I like this book because I needed more in-depth information about actual feeding practices, including a discussion of the different nutritional needs of different birds who require formulas. Whether you are raising companion birds or you are an animal rehabilitator/rescuer you will probably find this book useful.

If you have patience, you can get a good "overview" of handfeeding pet baby birds here..

If not.. I suggest you go elsewhere.

Dr.Vriends thoughts are disorganized, self-congratulatory, and all over the place. He could of used an intelligent editor here.

Each chapter has information that is right out of the authors head-- instead of organizing laying of eggs, incubating, feeding, etc. in concise chapters. The chapters repeat lots of information. I found it very hard to follow-- trying to turn forward and back to other chapters with "sort of" the same topic.

I respect Dr. Vriends expertise on most everything...but, the points on this book are not organized.

What if you don't want to feed the baby birds when they first hatch? What if you want to socialize them while still letting the mom and dad feed? There are lots of places here where I left scratching my head-- and re-reading the convoluted syntax in this book asking "what is he trying to say here"?

This book definately is written from the standpoint of out of the incubator, into the breeders hands...

Dr. Vriends, you have more experience on this to share, don't you? Too professional a book...

This book is helpful! We have 20 birds! Some breed all the time. You have to put a stop to those. Others you never know when they are going to breed. If they have trouble feeding their young, this book helps guide you through the steps. It also teaches you all about pet birds. I've been a pet bird owner for years!

This book was OK. It talks about all pet birds, so it really only gives a little bit of information about each. If you are looking to know about handfeeding ONE certain kind of bird, then I would look for a different book. The pictures are very cute though.

This book didn't have nearly as much useful information as I was hoping. It's in serious need of a new edition. I knew that it was published in the 1990's, but I was hoping to find it helpful anyway. It's way more outdated than I anticipated.

The book is geared toward the breeder who wants to incubate eggs and handfeed chicks from day-one. The handfeeding formula recipes are old and include monkey chow in the ingredient list. Also, a lot of the info relates to waterfowl and other non-parrot species.

A lot has been learned about parrots in the 15 or so years since this book was published. I would recommend finding a book that was published within the last few years.

This is an excellent book on the total care of baby parrots. Also includes general care of adult parrots. I've read many parrot books and have owned a parrot for 10 yrs and I highly recommend this book. Well written and a good reference book.

This book has just the right information for a beginner like myself. It also has pictures that suits someone like me who depends more on graphic presentation than just words. It does not contain too many technical terminology for the general public to grasp what the author is saying and understand the message it is meant to convey.