Abstract
Trust me, most people who love birds also love books, especially good books about birds. This happy circumstance makes your holiday gift giving very easy including, of course, gifts to your most deserving self.
To simplify your holiday season, I'll briefly review a couple of books recently added to my own library - books that have been very instructive and which I've thoroughly enjoyed reading.
Parrot Incubation Procedures Parrot Incubation Procedures by Rick Jordan is a volume I should dearly loved to have had a few years ago. Alas, at that time the data and experience were not developed. My education in incubation was gained from disaster to disaster. If you breed parrots of any sort and wish to avoid disasters to your birds and damage to your emotional well being, you absoI utel y must own and study this outstanding book.
Parrot Incubation Procedures (also called PIP - quite a nice play on words) contains a foreword by Robert J. Berry, Former Curator of Birds at the Houston Zoological Gardens, wherein Berry explains how the author has artificially incubated the greatest number of large parrot eggs ever available to a single individual. Jordan has drawn on this rich source of data and experience to compile this unique book. As a personal aside, let me tell you when I learned that Bob Berry wrote the foreword to this book all my doubts vanished. The fact that Berry agreed to write the foreword gives the book an unimpeachable stamp of authority.
Then, as I read and studied the book, everything Jordan said really hit home with me. I found myself saying, ''Yes, yes, exactly;' as he described various situations and difficulties. Many times I groaned when he explained a simple method to past problems that cost me so much blood and sweat. All of the book's eight chapters are to a parrot breeder what water is to a desert traveller. But, to me, chapters three - "Preparing for Incubation," Four - "Candling and Repairing Eggs,'' and Seven - " Hatching and Hatching Assistance," are so valuable that I wish I could reprint them verbatim here.
Let me set a scene. You have a collection of rare and expensive parrots you've spent years developing. It's late spring and your incubator has 2 5 or so expensive and rare eggs in it. A sudden thunderstorm knocks the power out and there you stand, looking at an absolutely useless wooden box that used to be an incubator.
Believe me, friend, this is major panic time. You have several options for a few of the rarest eggs. A small container set on the stove above the pilot light - maybe, maybe. An ample spouse with a few eggs in the warm bosom - but be careful, don't move. Perhaps a container of eggs floating on hot water. How, oh, how can you find ninety-nine degrees for awhile?
Don't laugh. Also, don't try any of the above panic instigated remedies. Well, what does one do during a power failure' Take my advice. Buy PIP instantly - before the disaster hits. Be prepared.
As it happens, the book has a section called "When the Power Goes Off' Jordan tells you exactly what to do. Briefly: 1) turn off incubator to avoid power surge damage, 2) close incubator vents, 3) cover incubator with heavy blankets to slow cooling, 4) call authorities to learn how long power may be off.
If your incubator is indoors and you follow the above procedures, most of its heat will be retained for a couple of hours. For larger power failures, Jordan explains the old hot water bottle trick. It helps immensely, of course, to have a few hot water bottles on hand. Indeed, without them the trick doesn't do well at all. This presupposes that you have read the book and are prepared.
All of the other chapters of the book are equally practical. You'll learn how to prevent some damage to eggs. You'll learn how to repair those eggs that are damaged. You' II learn when and how to help a chick hatch. Jordan will take you through a most valuable training experience, opening an egg that doesn't contain a live chick. Believe me, the practice is worth its weight in gold. One of my first experiences in assisting a chick out of the egg was with a Cacatua ophthalmica. It took years off my life.
You needn't suffer so, for now you have at your fingertips the most accurate and complete data ever assembled on parrot egg incubation.
Parrot Incubation Procedures by Rick Jordan was published by Silvio Mattacchione and Co., 197 3 Rosebank Rd. N., Pickering, Ontario LI VIPS Canada, 1989. The book is hard bound, 6" x 9-1/4" in size, has 142 pages with many charts, illustrations and color plates.
If you are a serious and responsible parrot breeder, you won't fail to study and use this book. The price from the publisher is $30.00.