Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best, March 28, 2011
This review is from: A Chicken in Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store's Guide to Chicken Keeping (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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get the book. Then get chickens!, March 27, 2011
This review is from: A Chicken in Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store's Guide to Chicken Keeping (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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the perfect book for keeping urban and suburban chickens, August 26, 2011
This review is from: A Chicken in Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store's Guide to Chicken Keeping (Hardcover)
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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
