A Chicken in Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store's Guide to Chicken Keeping [Hardcover]

Robert Litt (Author), Hannah Litt (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 22, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1580085822 | ISBN-13: 978-1580085823 | Edition: 1

Got a little space and a hankering for fresh eggs?

Robert and Hannah Litt have dispensed advice to hundreds of urban and suburban chicken-keepers from behind their perch at Portland’s Urban Farm Store, and now they’re ready to help you go local and sustainable with your own backyard birds. In this handy guide to breeds, feed, coops, and care, the Litts take you under their experienced wings and share the secrets to:
 
Picking the breeds that are right for you • Building a sturdy coop in one weekend for $100 • Raising happy and hearty chicks • Feeding your flock for optimal health and egg nutrition • Preventing and treating common chicken diseases • Planning ahead for family, neighborhood, and legal considerations • Whipping up tasty egg recipes from flan to frittata
 
With everything that first-timers will need to get started—along with expert tips for more seasoned keepers—this colorful, nuts-and-bolts manual proves that keeping chickens is all it’s cracked up to be.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Backyard chickening may be the best next step beyond backyard gardening. Leveraging their own experience with their Oregon customers’ shared wisdom, Robert and Hannah bring to every aspiring next stepper a mentoring book that can nudge anyone into micro-eggery.”
—JOEL SALATIN, founder of Polyface Farm, author of You Can Farm, and contributor to Food, Inc.: A Participant Guide
 
“This is the guide to raising chickens that I desperately needed when I first started urban farming. Robert and Hannah have seen it all when it comes to raising cluckers.”
—NOVELLA CARPENTER, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

About the Author

Robert and Hannah Litt are the founders of the Urban Farm Store in Portland, Oregon. They’ve been featured on Planet Green’s Renovation Nation, National Public Radio, and Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Robert was recently named to Food & Wine magazine’s “40 Big Food Thinkers Under 40.” Visit www.urbanfarmstore.com and www.achickenineveryyard.com.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press; 1 edition (March 22, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580085822
• ISBN-13: 978-1580085823
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Pets & Animal Care > Birds
  • #16 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Home Improvement & Design > How-to & Home Improvements > Do-It-Yourself
  • #17 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Agricultural Sciences > Animal Husbandry

More About the Author

As a landscape designer for 10 years, I found myself spending too much time behind a computer screen and yearning to get my hands back into the soil. It was time for a change. I decided to create a resource for folks who wanted to produce some of their own food by raising chickens, growing vegetables, and planting home orchards. The Urban Farm Store was born on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb 1) 2009.

Sharing my love of gardening and raising small animals with my customers and friends has been a dream come true. In my books I share the accumulated wisdom of these thousands of interactions.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 64 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars the perfect book for keeping urban and suburban chickens August 26, 2011

By Silea TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the only book you need if you want to keep a few chickens in your yard.

Flipping through a lot of the other highly-rated chicken books, it quickly became clear that most of them are oriented toward large-scale chicken keeping. Sure, some have added token acknowledgement that some people keep chickens as pets that happen to lay eggs, but the tone and the information are suited toward people who don't plan to name their chickens or tell stories about their antics. They're low on details about how tall a fence should be to keep the chickens from ravaging your vegetable garden, and discredit methods like clipping wings because it's just not viable if you have 200 birds.

If you want to experience the joy of cracking open an egg still warm from the chicken, of knowing exactly what the chicken ate and how it was cared for, of knowing that the only carbon footprint involved in your breakfast was your trip down to the feed store every few months, this is the book for you. If you have no plans whatsoever of eating your chicken just because it stopped laying 7 eggs a week, this is the book for you. If you want a practical guide for housing chickens in a small urban back yard, heck, this book even has detailed plans for building a simple but safe coop and run. It even has a neat breakdown of how much time you will need to set aside for caring for your birds (five minutes in the morning to feed and collect eggs and let the birds out, five minutes in the evening to feed and collect eggs, and lock the door of the coop, 20 minutes once a week to add more bedding, and so on) so you have some idea of what time commitment you're actually making.

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best March 28, 2011

By KS

Format:Hardcover

I must have 10 books on raising chickens, trying to be as educated as possible before I get started with the birds. This is the best of them. It is clear, concise, practical, very readable. This is the book you read first, and keep on the shelf for questions as they develop. Wish I lived close enough to visit with Robert and Hannah.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Get the book. Then get chickens! March 27, 2011

By LuvThatChicken

Format:Hardcover

As a customer of the Urban Farm Store, I'd been anxiously awaiting Robert and Hannah's how-to book on keeping small backyard flocks. Turns out, this is much more than a how-to book. It's beautiful, for starters, featuring original illustrations by Portland artists and photographs shared by customers. The authors draw from their own experiences raising chickens, studying animal nutrition, and running their shop. They take you from the "why" to the "how" to the "what now," covering all the basics plus some of the touchier issues too (vet care, roosters, end of life). Most importantly, they give voice to the wide-ranging experiences of the community of chicken keepers that has formed around their store.

I was in their Portland store last year on the first cold day of the year. The phone rang at least a dozen times in the short time I was there, and each time Robert listened patiently, then gave clear advice on how to prepare chickens for the winter. This book reminds me of that day. The authors have heard it all, yet manage never to come off as know-it-alls. I highly recommend it.