Customer Reviews

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, 3rd Edition

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have browsed/read the previous edition of Gail Damerow's book, but in this one I discovered information that was not in the older one. For example, the information about types of predators and how to identify them was of particular interest to me, since one of my young chickens was eaten by a "mystery animal." This book is great as either a book to read through or as a handbook (which I am using it as). There's also good guidelines on making your own feed. Every chicken keeper must own this book!

I can't imagine a better book about raising chickens. Gail Damerow covers EVERY RELEVANT SUBJECT. Her writing style is so great that I find myself reading just for the pleasure of it. Her 40+ years of experience raising chickens has acquainted her with every possible subject and issue. She has also consulted with other experts to give the reader an even wider view on many subjects. I LOVE THIS BOOK!

Well I haven't read that many books on raising chickens, but this book seems to be THE guide to have. Every subject you can imagine is covered. However, I think the breed selection section could be better. The other book I have is Keeping Chickens, which has terrific pictures and descriptions of the most popular breeds available. Like I said in the review of that book: a marriage of the two books would be perfect. If you're looking for a detailed reference book about raising chickens this is definitely the book for you.

I have read several books about keeping a home flock of chickens and this is my favorite. The new edition has even better up to date information.

This book is written for people who plan to keep large flocks and focus on productivity. There are little edits here and there to accommodate the growing masses of people keeping a few hens in their backyard, but that's in the form of asides like, '...but if you only have a few chickens you probably won't have this problem.'

My favorite example was in the discussion of diseases. There's a long section about how to recognize various diseases, how to treat them, and so on. At the end, the author comments that not every chicken death is attributable to a disease, and finding a dead chicken or two every now and again is no reason for panic. I plan to have 3 or 4 chickens. If two dropped dead, that would be half of my flock, and i would definitely panic.

If you plan to run a large flock, this book will be very valuable. It has a great deal of information on good laying breeds, good meat breeds, and so on. It discusses diseases, infections, and how to tell what kind of predator killed your bird by what bits you find left on the ground.

However, if you plan to keep a few chickens as layers and pets, and don't want to be told that you should send them off for slaughter after they pass their prime laying years (about age 2), you might not get what you want or need from this book. It's full of admonitions against mixing breeds, mixing age groups, and so on that are important in large flocks but manageable in smaller ones. If you plan to name your chickens, i highly recommend skipping this book and getting A Chicken in Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store's Guide to Chicken Keeping instead. It's oriented toward people keeping a few chickens in their urban or suburban back yard, and has no chapters on how to slaughter a chicken.

I don't like this book, because every time I had a problem with the chicken and tried to look it up I didn't find an answer. There are no cures for sick chicken and questions for a normal backyard chicken keeper are not covered.
Instead you will find lengthy descriptions about backyard chicken cages.
I like much more the book backyard poultry naturally because she gives solutions to problems.

I just bought the new edition of this book as my old copy was very tattered. I started raising chickens 20 years ago and this book was my 'bible' until I had gathered enough experience to gain confidence in what I was doing. I still use it as a general reference guide even now. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a backyard flock.

The book is geared more towards a backyard business flock than a hobby flock. However a chicken is a chicken and all of the feed, housing and problem resolution information is applicable, just on a smaller scale.

I read this book cover to cover when it came in. It is fascinating the new things it has to teach you. Did you know that chickens can be artificially inseminated? Did you also know that you can inject food coloring into a developing egg to dye chicks before they hatch!? The stuff you learn in this book is very cool. The only downside is that some of the information is wrong, not quite right, or just lacking, and if you're new to chicken keeping, it may or may not have serious consequences. For example, on page 5, Ms. Damerow indentifies various feather types for the reader, but the labels are wrong. This is easily cleared up by an internet search. Another example, with more perilous consequences however, is on page 290. Here Ms. Damerow writes that most incubators require a relative humidity of 60% during incubation, and 70% during hatch. But most people will tell you that this is too high, and should be more like 45-50% during incubation and 70% during hatch. Finally, I also wish she would've addressed the topic of feeding poultry or raw egg to poultry. At one point in the book, she recommends feeding dry cat food to moulting chickens to increase their protein intake and help with feather production, but she fails to acknowledge that most cat food is made from chicken. Therefore, I highly recommend getting a second, supplemental book to go with this one. But overall, this is a very comprehensive book.

Book is great, perfect condition, and is practically an encyclopedia of information about chix. It did seem like it took a long time to receive it--in excess of 3 weeks.

My husband just finished building a chicken coop, and we got our chickens two days ago. We followed Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens. The chickens must have really liked their coop, because even though we were told they probably wouldn't lay eggs for a week (since the transport of them stresses them out), we had an egg the very next day! This is a great book if you plan to raise chickens.