Interesting Reading

[Alwese]

My wife works in the church thrift store and discovered this unusual book there which is right up my alley called "Parrots, Their Care and Breeding" by Rosemary Low published in the UK in 1980. This large and very comprehensive book I found very interesting in that it documents the transition from taking birds from the wild to the system of domesticly created birds we have today. Very surprising is how young our knowledge is of proper nutrician, species identification, and breeding techniques that have become common knowledge today. For instance, DNA analysis has become a routine method of sexing macaws. Without this knowledge people were often frustrated with mating efforts only to find what they thought were pairs were really both the same sex. Today we have wonderful handfeeding formulas while they were stumbling in the dark with feeding sunflower seeds and monkey biscuits. Technology has changed so rapidly we quickly forget how far we have come. Even names of species have not been nailed down for very long. Buffon's macaws were called Grand Military. Red Fronted Macaws were called Red-cheeked and were totally unknown in aviculture before 1973. Yellow collared macaws were called Cassin's Macaw. Breeding success was not achieved with some species until as late as 1976. For me that is just yesterday. Scarlets and Hyacinths have a long and glorious history as desired species as pets. Documented in the book is how these were routinely eaten by native indians in Mexico and Brazil. Access to many species is only recent as highways were built into formerly inaccessable interior regions as roads were built. Habitat destruction from logging and urban sprawl was noted even then. This book has been a real time-machine for me to see how far we have come. Many of the frustrations and fears of small scale breeding and behavior problems are well documented and shared in this book.
I am entering a new chapter in my life as I retired just two weeks ago. It is wonderful beyond words that I can spend hours on end with my own macaws and share them with others. In addition to taking them to stores and the Riverside Arts Market, I have inquired about doing bird shows at 3 hospitals, nursing homes, and schools. I have a friend with a large macaw collection who breeds macaws I never had time to help in the past. I fully intend now to learn macaw raising techniques and even so some of this myself. .... Al Weseman

 

[azdesertrhino]

Interesting info and congrats on retirement. Enjoy!!