Contains a wealth of easy-to-understand, practical information on canary selection, feeding, housing, health, breeding, and more, The Practical Canary Handbook is an invaluable guide to breeding and keeping canaries.

The creation of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s was for many people the start of a new era: the age of genetically modified animals. However, the idea was not new for in the 1920s an amateur scientist, Hans Duncker, decided to genetically engineer a red canary. Though his experiments failed, they paved the way for others to succeed when it was recognised that the canary needed to be both a product of nature and nurture. This highly original narrative, of huge contemporary relevance, reveals how the obsession with turning the wild canary from green to red heralded the exciting but controversial developments in genetic manipulation.

This vintage book contains a complete and practical guide to the breeding, exhibiting, and general management of canaries. This accessible and profusely illustrated guide includes all the information an existing or prospective canary keeper might need to know, and it is highly recommended for those with a practical interest in the subject. The chapters of this book include: “Canary Keeping as a Hobby”, “Aviaries, Cages, and Fittings”, “Breeding and General Management”, “Moulting and Colour Feeding”, “Diseases and their Treatment”, “Seeds and their Uses”, “Exhibiting”, “The Belgian”, “The Scots Fancy”, etcetera. Many antiquarian books such as this are increasingly hard to come by and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on aviculture.