does anyone know anything about turacos or plantain eaters

[aldren90]

i am interested in these and need dome info please let me know and if some one has some for sale

 

[Dr. Todd]

Ask for the book 'Encyclopedia of Aviculture' by Glen Holland for Christmas. You'll get reliable information on all the various species you've been asking about. Spend some money on a good book before you go shopping for the birds themselves.

DT

 

[punk-a-doodle]

I used to work a bit with two turacos at an aviary. These two were trained bird show birds:
http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?sq=turaco

Hand-raised turacos are kind of like hand-raised raptors, most are aggressive rather than tame. I'm not sure if the red-crested was human imprinted, but he was extremely territorial and aggressive (which red-cresteds are pretty much known for regardless!). He would sit on your hand as long as you held your finger up (his cue to 'stay'), but if you met his eyes at all, he took that as full liberty to scratch the heck out of your face. Going into his enclosures to feed him meant training him to stay on a perch in order for his food to be put down. If you did not get him to 'place' on his perch, you were met with a fury of feathers and claws. They have very messy, sloppy poops, so you have to be prepared to do a lot of clean up. The aviary fed this pair softbill pellets with some fruit. They had to cut the birds' fruit back though, as the commercially grown kinds were causing health problems. Bugs, greens, and seeds were given for enrichment. So yeah, high cost, high mess birds, but very pretty. "HANDBOOK OF THE BIRDS OF THE WORLD", Vol 4 by Josep del Hoyo-Andrew is part of a pretty exhaustive series that has a section on turacos. As for buying them, check here:
http://sites.google.com/site/davislundaviaries/home/turacos

 

[Chickndaddy]

Here are some websites with some information on them.

http://www.avianweb.com/breedingturacos.html

http://sites.google.com/site/davislundaviaries/home/turacos