- Mar 21, 2009
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Some of these books are very hard to find, like the Crawford book is almost impossible to find these days and it always seems to be a couple hundred bucks. A lot of the better medical books are indeed textbooks and unfortunately, textbooks are a fortune. I spend about $800-$1,000 per semester on textbooks. It is just a necessary evil, LOL. Actually Chickboss, I have found that Amazon is one of the best places to buy textbooks. I also occasionally use Alibris and even Barnes and Noble sometimes has good deals on used books. A couple people have told me Half.com is good too.
The thing is though I don't know that a textbook is necessary for most hobbyists (or even rather large breeders). You will find that they contain a lot of superfluous information, as well as information geared towards commercial poultry houses or large collections, like zoos. The majority of the scholarly research out there about poultry has been done on commercial farms with thousands of birds. It is just a totally different ball game than with a private breeder. With ducks specifically, some of the research still quoted is literally ancient, like often from the early 1900's! Even worse, a lot of it was done on a very small number of birds, far below what is considered appropriate for research in this day and age (more specifically research on the genetics of color). HTH.
The thing is though I don't know that a textbook is necessary for most hobbyists (or even rather large breeders). You will find that they contain a lot of superfluous information, as well as information geared towards commercial poultry houses or large collections, like zoos. The majority of the scholarly research out there about poultry has been done on commercial farms with thousands of birds. It is just a totally different ball game than with a private breeder. With ducks specifically, some of the research still quoted is literally ancient, like often from the early 1900's! Even worse, a lot of it was done on a very small number of birds, far below what is considered appropriate for research in this day and age (more specifically research on the genetics of color). HTH.
