Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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!

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!

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.

I didn't find this book very useful. First, it is a slim volume to start with, so it is not really very comprehensive.

Half of it is the author just sort of rambling on about her chickens. She includes lots of stories about her chickens, how she decided to keep chickens, other people's reactions to her chickens, etc. I found this part somewhat charming but not really helpful in any way. And after a while, it got kind of annoying [like someone telling stories about their children incessantly - kids you've never met - and just going on and on. Our children tend to be cuter and funnier to *us* than they are to strangers - after a while I'd had enough of cutsie stories about how adorable she thinks her personal chickens are].

Then the other half of the book is some really, REALLY basic information on getting chickens and raising them. But the information is so simplistic that if you have already read ANY other book on raising chickens, then you know far more than you are going to get from this book.

Some of the information she included was just kind of strange... like saying that you have to line your brooder cage with either rags, towels, or old socks and then throw them out every day and line the cage with different rags, towels, or socks.... not only have I never seen that advice in ANY other chicken book [and I've built quite a library at this point], but that seems like it could get really expensive pretty quick... how many socks am I willing to waste lining a brooder box with fresh socks every day?

She also says you need to feed your chickens cottage cheese and spinach every day....

She also is kind of on the extreme end when it comes to chickens - if you have even the faintest idea that you might eat one of your chickens one day, DON'T bother with this book. The author considers anyone who would eat their chicken to be a cruel monster. The author talks about chickens as beloved pets and really personifies them to the point that the fact that they are domesticated animals reared to be food for thousands of years is completely lost on her. [Don't get me wrong, I don't plan to eat my 5 little hens either - I just don't have the heart for chicken slaying personally - but I found it bizarre that the author of a book about keeping chickens would be "animal rights-ish" to the point of implying that someone who would kill and eat their chicken is evil.....]

There were other things that made the book an odd read too. The author keeps mentioning her "spouse" - the spouse is never given a name or referred to as anything other than "my spouse", in a way that is actually very awkward. I suspect that the spouse might be a same sex partner because of the way pronouns were so carefully and awkwardly avoided - it was just odd. It seemed to me that she needed to either honor the spouse with a name and a personality or leave the spouse out of the book entirely. It was weird reading it the way it is written.

So, I have to say all in all, this is an odd little book that I would recommend skipping. [I should have taken this one out at the library first I guess!]. I think the beginning chicken keeper would find "Living With Chickens" to be FAR more useful and entertaining.

This is my favorite book about raising chickens in an urban backyard, and I've read quite a few books on this subject. You can truly feel the joy and smile from the author and it certainly made me thinking about chickens day and night! This book has beautiful pictures, very thorough and detailed info on raising and caring for chickens, and a lot of knowledge that only poeple who LIVES with chickens can share.

Some readers critisize the book for being 'personal', well, what would you prefer-- a dry text book, or a book that has feelings, that comes from real life experience and that you can't put down??

An update- thanks to this book, we got three baby chicks in January and now have three beautiful chickens in our backyard. They have given us so much joy, just like how the book described!

As well as being an incredibly fun read, this book gives you all the basic information you need to begin keeping chickens.

I was so happy to read that I am not suffering from temporary insanity, but just one of the large number of "city-folk" who have responded to their back-to-the-past desire to raise their own eggs. Additionally, I was happy to learn that there are others who enjoy the endless and relaxing entertainment provided by the antics of these industrious birds and even go so far as giving names to their chickens.

This book is full of interesting chicken information and even covers some of the very basics of terminology (so we city folk can use words like 'pullet' instead of calling them 'young girl chickens').

I highly recommend this book.

The author is very encouraging and entertaining when telling stories of her chicken's antics, and her neighbor's reactions. If you are trying to convince someone to get chickens, this might be a good read, especially if they take delight in the eccentric or quirky (her chicken's have silly names and she installs a live camera feed in their coop, for instance.) However, if you want chickens and are looking for a guide on how to raise them, keep looking.

As a person who has done some basic research of backyard flocks online, I found this book to not even cover the fundamentals of chicken-rearing. She has a very narrow perspective, only having raised these three hens, and does not speak to methods other than her own personal favorite way of doing things. Chicken health is not mentioned, beyond calling a vet (good luck finding a vet in a metro area who is experienced with poultry concerns). You can certainly find more information in a quick internet search for "urban chickens" than in this book, which reads more like a memoir of the author's time with her chickens.

I would recommend this book only to those people who are looking for a light, quick read on the joy of having chickens - not for those who are looking for reliable, how-to information on rearing small flocks of their own.

This has got to be the best books on keeping just a few chickens I've seen. Not only is it full of good advice and information, it has a firm grip on the very personality of chickens. I live in a very rural area where we can have huge flocks of chickens if so desired, so for me keeping chickens in a small area isn't an issue, but for those who have to keep an eye to the laws regarding keeping livestock in urban areas, this book has all the information anyone would need.

I would caution the reader to check out the local ordinances for keeping chickens, though, because the list in the back of the book could be outdated.

This book, along with Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, should be on the bookshelves of everyone who keeps chickens...whether two or three urban chickens, or a small flock of 50 birds or so. (As a warning, if you're keeping chickens for eggs and as pets, skip the processing section in the Guide to Raising Chickens.)

While this book is wholly entertaining and chock-full of good tips for the beginner, it is also has a few recommendations that I have found fault with -- for example, no back yard chicken owner I've met yet agrees that STRAW is appropriate bedding use. It's a haven for pests with its hollow tube! (Timothy hay is much more highly recommended.) So I would recommend it for an introductory text: good coop suggestions (altho limited in truly useful drawings, schematics, more just whimsical pictures), a short pictorial of different larger breed chickens, and lots and lots of entertaining chicken trivia. However, for a better "reference" for the real job of raising, protecting and flourishing chickens, Storey's "Guide to Raising Chickens" is probably the better technical book. It's also a lot drier!

Convincing someone that pet chickens are fun, funny, and fascinating might take a chapter. The anecdotes about the author's hens are convincing in themselves. The rest of the book needs to be more focused and practical, a lot less chatty and repetitious. This book lacks clear structure--wanders around like a hen looking for goodies, and you need sharp chicken eyes to find the few nuggets of practical information.