Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces [Paperback]

Barbara Kilarski (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1580174914 | ISBN-13: 978-1580174916 | Publication Date: June 30, 2003

Chickens are hot! There's a chicken-farming boomlet on the rise, with upscale urban and suburban homeowners from every part of the country ordering fancy breeds of chickens, hiring architects to build elegant chicken coops in their backyards, and signing up for classes on how to raise a happy, healthy flock in a small space.

Now Barbara Kilarski, a woman with a passion for poultry, offers a handbook that is as practical and encouraging as it is witty and entertaining. THE TOWN & COUNTRY CHICKEN provides the detailed information every aspiring chickenkeeper needs to know.

Like home-grown vegetables, home-raised chickens put us in touch with our rural past, give us a sense of self-sufficiency, and provide food - eggs! - for the table that is a lot tastier than anything we could find at the supermarket. And chickens are fun! Like dogs, they bond with their owners, and like kids, they do the darnedest things.

Kilarski regales the reader with tales spotlighting the joys of raising chickens, while at the same time explaining the nitty-gritty details of how to be a successful chicken keeper.

Any way you look at it, chickens are a star of the domestic household. They are easy and inexpensive to raise, they don't need much living space, and they provide eggs for free. No dog or cat on the planet can make the same claim.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Chickens are hot right now, as attested by articles on backyard chickens in the Wall Street Journal and House and Garden (not to mention Martha Stewart and her palatial henhouses). Kilarski is a self-proclaimed "city chick," and her approach to chicken keeping reflects this background. This is a book for people who want to keep chickens in the city or suburbs, not for those with large flocks in the country. Kilarski also makes an important point--keeping chickens in this context really means keeping hens, as roosters with their crowing are generally illegal in urban areas. In eight short chapters, the author covers the basics of chicken keeping, including feeds and feeding, coop and henhouse design, breeds that are suitable for backyard flocks, and recipes featuring the fresh eggs that the hens will provide. Sidebars offer factoids about chickens and poultry keeping. The text is profusely illustrated with period advertisements and includes a color gallery of hens and coops. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

A paralegal who is passionate about poultry, Barbara Kilarski has published articles in a variety of print and web venues, mainly in the Pacific Northwest. She lives with The Girls--Lucy (a New Hampshire Red), Whoopee (an AustraLorp), and ZsaZsa (a Barred Plymouth Rock) in Portland, Oregon.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (June 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580174914
• ISBN-13: 978-1580174916
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #170,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a really nice book! but watch out for one dangerous piece of advice, January 31, 2006

By 

N. Ferguson "Two, Daisy, Hannah, and Kitten" (Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces (Paperback)

This is a nice introduction for those thinking about keeping a few pet chickens. An easy, quick, and fun read. The author's enthusiasm is infectious. She helps you to feel that you, too, can keep chickens! :)

I was disappointed by one part of the book, though. The author strongly advocates using rat poison to deal with the rodents that inevitably want to dip into chicken feed and invade chicken coops. She states that using a box for the poison which has a small entry hole will prevent cats and dogs from being poisoned. Don't count on it! Rat poison is an anticoagulant which slowly kills rats and mice by causing massive internal bleeding. When cats or dogs catch and eat these sick, miserable rodents (or scavenge dead rodents) they are inevitably killed, too-- there is no effective treatment. I personally know of two dogs and two cats which died horrible deaths after ingesting poisoned rodents. So... unless you want to risk killing your own pets and your neighbor's pets, avoid rat poison. There are plenty of other alternatives on the market.

All of the chicken books I have read have the same advice regarding poison, so this isn't a downside for this particular book. (The Storey Guide by Gail Damerow has a little more guidance about which poisons are the most dangerous, but still advocates using poison.) Overall, it was a great book!

49 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book for the small flock owner!, December 10, 2003

By 

Okie in Alaska (Alaska USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces (Paperback)

Ok, I have to be honest. I don't own any chickens.... yet. I plan on building a coop this spring and getting some though. I have been reading lots of books on chickens and I recommend this one for the small flock owner along with Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens.

For one thing Keeping Chickens is more warm fuzzy, pro-chicken as pets kind of book than any of the other books I have read. Some of the other books get a little dry especially in the "processing" chapter. I can only have three hens and they are going to be pampered pets so the "processing" parts don't interest me.

It has some nice color pictures in the middle and lots of good chicken advice throughout. I was dissapointed by the lack of more detailed coop design although she gives lots of good tips and advice on building one.

I do have one bone to pick with the author though. The book lists some of the major cities and their chickens laws and it got Juneau's wrong. She listed that there were no rules and cited the animal control ordinances as proof. Actually, there are rules and they are in title 49 of the zoning and planning ordinances. Be warned, check your local laws for yourself. Call Animal Control, the Humane Society or the City and double check!

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Charming except for one thing..., January 13, 2008

By 

C. M. Okon (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces (Paperback)

I love the simplicity of this little book. The author makes it sound so doable to keep chickens in the city. However, I was dismayed to read that she so flippantly suggests using poison as way to manage rats, who are inevitably drawn to the chicken feed. Well, the problem with poisoning rats--who die of a "bad stomache" as she describes it -- is that these rats not only suffer a horribly cruel demise but also could be eaten by predators such as raptors who will suffer a similar end. I know this very thing happened in San Francisco, where the red tailed hawk population was affected by rat poison placed in Golden Gate Park.
I am just surprised that a book published by an "eco friendly" company would allow such a cavalier recommendation to use a method that is anything but eco-friendly in the larger sense. I love chickens but there is a larger world and context beyond them. Still, it is useful and enjoyable how-to on raising chickens, and if it were minus the presumptious attitude about ridding the coop of rats it would be something I'd recommend.