Customer Reviews

Storey's Guide to Raising Poultry: Breeds, Care, Health

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I checked this book out from the library because I wanted more information on raising poultry other than ducks and chickens. I'd already read, and loved, both Gail Damerow's "Raising Chickens," and Dave Holderread's "Raising the Home Duck Flock." My intentions are to have a laying flock and raise enough broilers to feed just my family, and to do so with free-range, organic methods. I'm interested in trying to raise other types of poultry for meat as well. I left reading this book with the feeling that it was strongly geared towards someone who would like to raise hundreds of birds as a business and the author leaned strongly towards raising birds in confinement. In other words, with one book dedicated to ALL poultry, and the author biased towards rearing in confinement, there was little information I, personally, could use.

When I did come to the chapters on turkeys and game birds, the info was scarce. The game bird chapter is only 22 pages long, with four of those pages being devoted to listing the different breeds or varieties of Guineas, Pheasants, Partridges and Quail and 5 1/2 other pages devoted to line drawings of the birds, and housing ideas and an entire page describing step by step the process of building one of the pens! The chapters devoted to turkeys and waterfowl are much the same. He does make an important note at the beginning of the game bird chapter that anyone interested in raising game birds should do more "homework" before starting a flock. I will, in a book dedicated to a specific type of bird.

If you are that someone the book is geared toward as I described above, you still won't find enough information here. To all, don't waste your money buying this book. Check it out from the library if your really do want to take a look, but I think you'll find that if you're just starting out with poultry (like me) that you'll need an entire book, or more, dedicated to each type.

I picked this up at the public library to skim over and take back but after having it for just one week, I must have my own copy. The wonderful knowledge that is presented in easy to understand directions from all aspects of poultry. The nice part is they have instructions how to build most any poultry equipment you might need and this would be great for anyone, especially home schoolers.
I am getting my copy.

I have a homestead in Peru (near Cusco / Machu Picchu). I wanted to raise my own meat; thus I bought a dozen chicks. As life dictates they grew and the day came for eating. I gave the first chicken to my housekeeper to kill and clean. She smothered the poor bird by holding its beak closed and plugging the nostrils. The suffocation process took about two struggling minutes. Not a good way to kill a bird, I thought. The second chicken was given to my hired hand, and he killed the bird by stretching its neck three times. Yes, a better method, but really, what do the professionals recommend? Thus, I initially bought "Storey's Guide to Raising Poultry", to find the most humane way to kill poultry.

The book is a no-nonsense, fact-filled resource. Written for those who are serious about raising poultry (chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, game birds and other poultry). Written by a professional poultryman, the book covers nutrition, disease, immunity, housing, breeding and management in a comprehensive manner.

The writing is clear, terse and complete. The diagrams and drawings are good. The book has a superb index, along with a good glossary, a list of associations, an appendix that gives you sources of supplies and equipment, and much more.

The descriptions of the breeds of poultry could be better. The one paragraph given to various breeds is inadequate for those who are unfamiliar with breeds (Wyandottes, Australorps, Araucans etc.). The feed section is bias towards commercially packaged feeds, and gives little to no information on homemade mashes. In Peru, we must make our own mash, or go without.

All-in-all, Storey's Guide it is a lot more book than I initially needed. But, after reading through the book, I was both impressed and intrigued enough to consider raising other types of poultry. Hum, maybe turkeys are next. I did use Mercia's recommended method for killing chickens (sever the jugular and insert knife for debraining) and must confess that killing a chicken, regardless of the methodology, is not my preferred hobby. Strongly Recommended

This is a good, informative book, like all of the Storey's guides. (We have many of them.) I just had hoped that this book would focus less on chickens, since there is a whole book on them, and more on the other fowl, like guineas, etc. that don't have an entire book of Storey's info. out there. Wish I had ordered a different book, since I already had the chicken one.

If you are looking to know how to raise birds, dont look further, this book has everything you need as a started, buy read it and enjoy it, while raising birds, it just need some minors changings for the tropical climate, you need to look the local practices also to compere yourself, also is advisable to visit the local Agricultural Institute for more information

I thought this book was descent. This book is geared more towards chickens, turkeys, & ducks. It poorly covers guineas and game birds. This book did not help me much since I have guineas & pheasants.

Personally, I like this book better than Storey's Raising Chickens. It has just as much information on raising baby chicks as the Raising Chickens guide. Leonard Mercia covers raising all poultry quite well in this guide. Good for any novice of poultry.

In 352 pages, Mr. Mercia covers chickens, turkeys, ducks and guineas all quite throughly. Plus, he writes in a straight and concise manner without being textbooky and boring. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone no matter what poultry they were raising. He covers poultry for profit and butchering how-to, briefly as well.

The only drawbacks I can see with this book is it's in black and white, with only line drawings. Also, only a few breeds of poultry are covered, so I'd pair this with the "Storey's Poultry Illustrated Poultry book" by Carol Ekarius if you haven't picked out your poultry breed yet.

This was a good overview for raising poultry breeds, but not enough detail on ay specific one. I didn't feel confident after reading this that I had enough info to begin, (maybe I'm just overly cautious). I also purchased Storey's guide to rasing chickens and feel that it helped to fill in the gaps. I also recommend finding someone in your area who can serve as a guide and mentor in this field. There are always questions that come up once you get started.

Not catered to the back yard bird grower. More for someone looking into commercial raising. I felt like the chapter on chicken biology was a poor choice to go into so much depth. I think time would have been better spent talking about something else. However, I learned allot and would recommend keeping it around as a reference.

This book is really good, It is designed more for people who want to raise birds mostly for meat. It was however a good buy, and it came very quickly.