Product Description

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!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52614 in Books
• Brand: NYLABONE CORP
• Published on: 2004-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780793805389
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

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.

Customer Reviews

nothing I can't find online for free
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.

good nutrition but some bad advice
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?

Great recipes and ideas!
This should be a part of every pet bird's book library. Birds like a variety and this is a great book to have on hand. I have 2 other recipe books and this one is a great addition. I have conures, and one very picky green cheek conure. I have tried the Birdie Breakfast, Birdie Cereal, South of the border muffins, and a few other recipes. I must say they love them (even my picky guy) and I think they're tasty for humans. I would highly recommend this book!