A Birdkeeper’s Guide to Parrots and Macaws is a handy little book to have with the beautiful pictures and short descriptions of several parrot species in the back one third of the book.

In the chapter "Choosing Parrots and Macaws", David Alderton give brief information on various thoughts and differences in choosing pet birds or breeding birds.

In the chapter "Keeping Parrots and Macaws in the Home, he gives some very good information about cages and cage placement. Unfortunately he then goes on to give an outdated method of wing clipping.

The chapter "Keeping Parrots and Macaws in the Garden, gives wonderful details on building outdoor aviaries for all sizes of parrot species.

The "Feeding Parrots and Macaws" chapter has some good information, but is outdated in some parts. Although he does give the basic seed/pellet/fruits/vegetables diet, he indicates the need for grit for digestion.

The "Basic Health Care" chapter lists several disease possibilities and stresses the fact that you must take your bird to veterinarian. I would stress that it must be an avian veterinarian or at the least a veterinarian who regularly treats birds.

The chapter Breeding and Rearing Parrots and Macaws explains methods of sexing birds that are not sexually dimorphic since knowing the sex of your birds is certainly the first step in breeding them. He gives details on the various nestboxes for the various sizes and species of parrots.

This book was published in 1989 and as with many books that are a little older, some of the information is outdated. We have learned a lot about bird care over the last few years that was not known in 1989.

If you can find this book at a reasonable price – taking into consideration that it is quite a small book (95 pages) – I would suggest getting it. The 90 colour photographs and illustrations are wonderful.

You can find this book at either Amazon.com or Amazon.ca