Customer Reviews

The Complete Encyclopedia Of Chickens

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Encyclopedia of Chickens (Hardbound Version) is a quality book through and through. The photography is the best I've seen in a chicken book.

The breeds are well presented visually, often as chicks, poults and adults. Which takes the mystery out of wondering what they should look like young or what they will look like when mature.

The write ups are very helpful and go into often neglected details such as individual breed mannerisms and behavior traits. Though each chicken is individual in temperment, breeds are pre-disposed and this book reveals that expertly.

Get this book while you can, I'm unhappy that they are not going to re-print such an obviously wonderful and important book which should be shared by every chicken nut.

I can't say enough about it, I just love it.

FredsFineFowl

Wow - I wish every chicken book had so much information for so little money! I have long looked for a book that has identifying photos of various breeds, and this one is great! (Except they didn't mention my beloved Dominiques!). While it should not be your ONLY poultry book, it should absolutely be ONE of them! Don't forget to hug your chickens today!

I gave this 4 stars because I don't think calling it the Complete Encyclopedia of Chickens is accurate. It is very informative, but certainly not complete. It does cover the basics & does offer detail but not in depth. It's a hard cover book with full color glossy pages. The photos are very good & it is a very attractive book to have. It will not answer all you questions regarding chickens though. You will need to purchase another book for that. Storey's guide to Chickens is very good. But if you just want a little reading material & an attractive book to boot, then this is a book worth buying.

This book provides detailed descriptions of the full range of chickens available in Europe. Photography is great, too. I really enjoyed it and have re-read it many times.

For American readers, I think Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds (a large scale paperback) may be more useful, since it covers only the APA breeds available in the United States. But for the chicken fanatic, this is still a very enjoyable read. The chicken care info at the beginning of the book is nice, and it is interesting to read a European perspective, too.

This is also a very sturdy, well-bound volume-- the sort of book that will last forever.

I buy books about chickens quite often, usually from the local feed store. But this book beats them all so far. It offers tons of information a chicken lover/owner wants or needs to know about care, breeding and more. It also has beautiful colored, detailed photos and sketches on almost every size, breed and origin, types of combs, feathers and more. I keep it on my coffee table for daily reference (I'm new to chicken rearing). And the price was 1/2 of what I've paid for others. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy chickens.

This book is great for those who have a few chickens already, but are still feeling like beginners. The book is set up into two sections; the first third of the book has general information concerning care, feeding, housing, a very informative unit on diseases, abnormalities, and parasites which I have already found to be useful,(one of my hens had a prolapse, and I didn't know if I needed to put her down, but I learned I didn't, and now she is fine and laying again).
The last two thirds of the book is the Encyclopedia part that features name, country and origin, appearance, colors and marking patterns, qualities and particulars for each breed, both for the large breeds and for the bantams.
I anticipate this volume to be a valuable resource as long as I am caring for my little flock.

When we started with chickens, I looked around for a good book showing photographs and information about the different chicken breeds. This book does an excellent job of surveying the various breeds, including information about temperament and personality, covering about two thirds of the book. There is also good advice about matching your chicken housing to the individual breed - variations in perch height and diameter, covered versus uncovered runs, and the like. Diseases, care, eggs, reproduction, and colors are covered as well. Literally every page is illustrated with one or more excellent color photographs.

This book is definitely slanted towards people interested in exhibition and/or home egg laying or pets. There is no information about raising chickens for meat, if that is your interest.

This is a terrific book for any person new to chickens.

This is one of the better chicken books I have seen. Informative and succinct. Beautifully illustrated.

I'm not a chicken expert by any means, but I can tell the difference between a rooster and a hen and some captions are incorrect as far as their descriptions. For example, for anyone who has the book, page 153, the captions seem to be flip-flopped between a Marans hen, silver black, and a Marans cock, brassy black. It doesn't take a genius to positively know the difference between those descriptions and the captions are clearly incorrect. Overall, I just didn't trust the information given. I purchased this book along with about nine others on chickens and I was hoping for a nice reference book. It has lots of color photographs but some descriptions didn't seem right. For example, it claimed that eggs from Maranses contain no salmonella bacteria ("according to the French Ministry")and the photos of Rhode Island's eggs were white; even I know that Rhode Island Reds are known for excellent production of light BROWN eggs (it even mentions this in the breed description). Do Rhode Island Whites lay white eggs? I would think they would also lay brown eggs. ????
Moreover, I was a little overwhelmed with how many different breeds and strains of chickens there were (the whole reason for purchasing the book, I suppose). It just got to where they were all looking about the same to me, especially breeds that I'd never heard of (that were not mentioned in my other chicken books) that come in the same colors as other breeds. There are a LOT of nice color photos though of all the breeds described and there is information about raising chicks and development in the egg, so it's not only breeds. It has detailed descriptions of each breed but doesn't mention specifics about what you can expect for egg production. Pics of chicks are frequent, which I really liked. Not all breeds have pics of what the chicks look like, but it is more thorough than the other chicken books I bought. Lastly, I think it is more geared towards a European audience.

Great book- wonderful color pictures, detailed info. Heath section is very good as well as the breed section.