The Healthy Bird Cookbook: A Lifesaving Nutritional Guide and Recipe Collection [Hardcover]

Robin Deutsch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2004

The Healthy Bird Cookbook: A Lifesaving Nutritional Guide and Recipe Collection is the perfect solution to all of your bird's nutritional needs. It provides 150 creative, healthy, and easy-to-make recipes that are appropriate for almost all species of pet birds. The book also offers a thorough, extensive section on avian nutrition that clearly explains the roles of pellets and seeds, the food groups, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids in your bird's diet. You can take comfort in the quality and nutritional value of these original recipes---the author is an avian expert who spent ten years consulting with veterinarians and doing hands-on research to compose them.

The Healthy Bird Cookbook features: ---150 recipes that are easy to make and healthy ---Illustrations of many of the delicious dishes included ---A thorough nutritional guide, including sections on special diets, specific nutritional needs, and foods to avoid ---Helpful hints, cooking tips, and safety suggestions throughout ---Many recipes that are great for people, too!

Editorial Reviews

Review

...a pioneering guide highly recommended, especially for owners and caretakers of pet birds... -- Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Robin Deutsch is a bird trainer who has been cooking for birds for more than 25 years. She was initially inspired by a veterinarian who advocated balanced meals instead of an all-seed diet for parrots. Her articles on bird training have appeared in Bird Talk magazine and the Pet Bird Report. She lives in Yelm, Washington, with her husband, Stephen; two children; and an assortment of parrots.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: TFH Publications (April 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0793805384
• ISBN-13: 978-0793805389
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #130,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Animal Care & Pets > Birds

More About the Author

Robin Deutsch was born in Chicago, Illinois and went to Northeastern Illinois University where she majored in Biology. She met her husband through one of the very first computer dating services. She got married in 1977 to Stephen Deutsch. She got her first big bird, Charlie, a yellow fronted Amazon right after they came back from their honeymoon. She eventually moved to Hillsboro, Oregon. While living in Hillsboro they were fortunate enough to find a bird training class taught by Chuch Rowles and learned all about training Charlie. It was in Hillsboro where both her children, Marcy who is autistic and Scott were born. After 20 years in Hillsboro she and her family moved to Yelm, Washington along with 20 birds and a dog. Yelm is a small town with a population of around 5000. She still has Charlie who is now around 40 (according to the vet) who is still going strong. She is currently a caregiver to her daughter, Marcy. Besides being a caregiver she manages Marcy's website, crittersonthings.com which sells her daughters incredible art on various items along with her books. She is also the chief executive manager of her son's company, a social media networking site for the mentally interesting, www.psychmoo.com. She and her husband are still married. In her free time she enjoys cooking, for both her family and her birds, playing games on the internet and enjoying social media connections she made on psychmoo.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars nothing I can't find online for free, September 30, 2006

By 

f. (wdc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Healthy Bird Cookbook: A Lifesaving Nutritional Guide and Recipe Collection (Hardcover)

I'm by no means a parrot expert but do know a fair amount about nutrition. Honestly, I found this book lacking much *parrot specific* information at all. The author admits that most of the information is based on human nutrition info because not a lot is known about parrot nutrition. (Granted, if true, this isn't the author's fault ... except the book's title might be less misleading if it were "Recipes your Parrots Might Enjoy").

The book, though, was basically a listing of nutrients and their functions in the body, followed by a bunch of recipes that I could easily get from any cookbook or online. The most "novel" recipe suggestion was to leave the egg shells on the eggs in your parrots' recipes?

What I was hoping for were some guidelines about parrot nutrition, as compared with human nutrition. Maybe if, in addition to the recipes, there were some suggested feeding schedules (so one could get an idea about relationship between the parrots' needs for fat, protein, carbs, etc.) that would be helpful.

I did learn conures need less protein and more vitamin K than other parrots. Unfortunately, though, this book leaves me with no idea about how much protein and vitamin K "other parrots" need. Or carlories or carbs or ...

There were also some factual problems with this book. Banana peels may be contaminated with monkey urine? Maybe this was a joke but it didn't stand out as such, in such a "fact free" environment. Also, the bit about the dark part of fruit flesh, around the seed, being toxic? I can't find anything coroborating this online.

It was good that she spoke out against all-seed diets and promotes the idea of fresh, home-cooked food for parrots. The book provides a summary of nutrition information that I might pull out once in a while but only because this book isn't as heavy as my "real" nutrition book but otherwise, not that useful. We eat fairly healthy ourselves and we'll share our food with our parrot, in addition to added nuts and fruits. Other than trying to add some vitamin K to our future BCC's diet, nothing else different than we'd planned to do.

Wish I'd checked this book out from the library instead of spilling out the cash for it. Had I checked it out first, I definitely wouldn't have purchased it.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good nutrition but some bad advice, April 11, 2006

By 

Gail Blank (Englewood, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Healthy Bird Cookbook: A Lifesaving Nutritional Guide and Recipe Collection (Hardcover)

There are a multitude of great recipes in this book. However, the author states things not to give your birds, ie sugar, and then includes recipes with sugar. I was also very disappointed to see the recommendation of adding Kaytee pellets to several of the recipes. Most Kaytee foods have ethoxyquin which is the worse preservative used and a known carcinogen. There are other brands out there. Was she paid by Kaytee to endorse their product?

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Healthy Bird Cookbook, August 5, 2004

By 

Toby Erin - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Healthy Bird Cookbook: A Lifesaving Nutritional Guide and Recipe Collection (Hardcover)

Excellent book. It's about time a book like this was available. The minute I opened it I made several of the recipes for my birds. They loved all the ones I made. Even my pickiest eater loved them. I thought that the information on nutrition was very well written. The recipes are easy to make with clear instructions. Many of the recipes have photos so you know what they should look like. I highly recommend this book for anyone who owns a bird who cares about their health and whether or not they are eating right.