Customer Reviews

Success With Baby Chicks: A Complete Guide to Hatchery Selection, Mail-Order Chicks, Day-Old Chick Care, Brooding, Brooder Plans, Feeding, and Housing

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you've ever considered raising chickens for hobby or profit,
this is the book you MUST HAVE. Plamondon's prose is eminently
readable, and his advice is spot on target. Drawing from ancient
sources as well as modern, he's produced a definitive guide to
the care and raising of chickens for eggs or meat.

Not some ivory-tower academic, Plamondon provides detailed
guidance to methods of poultry production, using materials and
equipment commonly available to anyone on a budget. You'll make
back the price of this book in just your first brood or two, in
reduced chick mortality alone.

Buy this book. It's good advice from a working farmer who knows
his stuff, and has the writing skills to communicate well.

Robert Plamondon has packed more great information about chick brooding into this book than can be found in any other current "how to" poultry book. The author combines his own chick brooding experiences with still valuable material from out-of-print poultry books, and shows the reader how to apply it using new technology. It is well illustrated with both old and new photos. This book is a must have if you want to raise chicks. I wish it had been available when I first started, but I have it now!

Plamondon raises chickens and eggs at his successful Oregon pastured poultry operation. He is also a respected member of the internet poultry mail groups.

He has gleaned the best of the past--tried and true information--the almost lost "Secrets of the Past Poultry Masters".The Ohio Brooder plans alone are worth the price of the volume. The guidelines are suitable for all climates and breeds.

The book is strong on up-to-date nutritional and disease control information, and explainations of what does and does not work.

Easy to understand charts and illustrations help the novice and experienced poultry person to grasp the concepts. Plamondon writes in an easy to read, engaging style.

Highly recommended!

This book tries to explain as clearly and simply as possible how to raise chicks. It covers several different kinds of set-ups, both modern and old-fashioned methods.

I wished this book had a section on raising just a handful of hens. But I think it still has many valuable insights which can be applied to raising just two, three, or a few more chicks.

This is a very helpful book for doing exactly what it says, raising mail order chicks. It's loaded with information. We found ourselves refering to it through our mail order chick process. It has been a valuable tool in raising our mail order chicks. It's a small soft cover book. But don't be fooled by the size! It covers everything you need to know! At least it does from what I can tell. We are not chicken experts but this has been our first BIG mail order of chicks & this really helped us understand what is happening when you have so many chicks. It's a big change over having just a few chicks! The rules change big time & this teaches you those new rules!

...His helpful responses to questions were always well reasoned, clear and factual... So I was pleased to see that he had put together the results of his research and experiences in one place.

Most of the information presented is also available elsewhere, but this is so well written that I found it to be a page turner. I only wish he had included an index.

I have skimmed through this book cover to cover and given it a cursory reading. My first impression is that this book has a lot of good information. Two negatives: 1. This little book seems a little too pricey - $15+ for such a small volume - but again, the information it contains does appear good.
2. The author apparently buys his chicks from a hatchery and doesn't cover anything about how to hatch out chicks whether from broody hens or incubators. This was very disappointing to me since, in my opinion, "success with chicks" shouldn't be solely dependent on mail-order chicks. It wasn't too long ago that shipping day old chicks across country was unheard of.

I bought this book over a year ago, and I will shortly begin brooding my 3rd batch of chicks using the brooder that I built following the plans in this book. I suppose I might have finally figured out much of this and pieced it together from other sources on my own, but Mr. Plamondon has it all right here in one little book. It was a good read when I bought it, and I refer to it over & over when I get a new batch of chicks. It has been a more important practical guide for me than any other poultry book I own.

Great book! Step by step information for welcoming your chicks "home". This book helped me feel confident even though I did not have any "chicken" experience. Explained different stages. Helped me figure out what I needed. Definitely a must have.

i guess this book would be alright if you had never raised chickens before but then you would probably want a more inclusive book like storey's or something similar. this is more of a pamphlet than a book and appears home published with small pages with big margins and lots of pictures and charts w/lots of spacing all black and white. there is some useful information it that he tells what has worked for him but there are thousands of websites where people give this out for free. it can be read in a half hour or so. if you have money just to toss around then buy this book.