The Parakeet Handbook – Review and Giveaway – Winner has been selected and contacted

This sweepstakes is over and the winner has been contacted.  Thanks everyone who entered!  

The Parakeet Handbook (Barron’s Pet Handbooks) is a great book to have on hand, whether you’re a novice or experienced owner. If you’re thinking about getting a budgie I would recommend reading both this book and Parakeets For Dummies.

For the potential parront there is a section about considerations before buying, and for the novice owner there are tips about cage set up, care and feeding and other basics.

I think the best section is the table of dangers, which highlights a lot of the dangerous items in the home, some that I hadn’t even thought of, such as a parakeet getting stuck behind books on a shelf. Also there is a great chapter on parakeet diseases and how to prevent them, and also what you can do at home to help support treatment.

The writing style is easy to read and the book is well-organized with a comprehensive index in back for easily locating what you need to find at any given time. There are a lot of pictures throughout, which of course I enjoy!

There are only a couple of issues I have with this book, one is that in several spots she mentions giving parakeets gravel to aid digestion, and I am strongly against that practice because parakeets do not need grit to break down food.

Additionally, I feel she doesn’t accurately capture the dangers of having candles or cigarette smoke around birds, candles are noted as a danger for burning only in the table of dangers, when in fact being in the same room as lit candles will almost certainly kill a parakeet.  For cigarettes, she mentions ventilating the room if someone smokes in the same room as the bird, which I find very alarming, maybe she didn’t want to offend smokers, but cigarettes should never be smoked anywhere near a parakeet. If someone in the household smokes every effort should be made to smoke outdoors and to wash hands thoroughly before handling a budgie or any bird.

Those few reservations aside, I do recommend this book for its wealth of information.

On to the giveaway!  This is sponsored by me and I will contact the winner after the end of the sweepstakes, midnight, Thursday 2/2 and will request the name and address, prize will be mailed by Amazon.com directly.  Open to the US only this time, 18 and over. The link will take you to the rafflecopter widget for entry.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER – subscribing is an entry option if you want to do that step first below!