Recommended Books, DVDs & Other Media on Chickens and Other Poultry*

Extra Extraordinary Chickens (Hardcover)

The striking images in Extraordinary Chickens showed that "the world of chickens is a world of wonders" (New York Times Book Review). Now, in a follow-up to the extraordinarily successful first book from Stephen Green-Armytage, the photographer presents 61 breeds and 5 species, including 14 breeds not previously included in the first book, a new series of chicken couples, and virtually all new images. Capturing with his camera chickens of all sizes, shapes, and colors, he illuminates gorgeous feather patterns worthy of French fabric designers, as well as elaborate wattles, elegant crests, and many other details. Through his exquisite photographs, he captures the surprising and expressive personality of these amazing creatures. Included are breeds developed in Japan, Malaysia, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Poland, Australia, South America, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere.

For breeders and enthusiasts, this volume will be a treasure they must own; for others it will be a revelation, worth having for the sheer enjoyment of the beautiful photographs and the wonderful birds they portray.

Ratings: 5 out of 5

Extraordinary Chickens (Hardcover)

Stephen Green-Armytage, author/photographer of Abrams' enchanting Dudley: The Little Terrier That Could, has now produced a unique adult book, introducing the bizarre and beautiful world of exotic ornamental chickens. His startling pictures present an international selection of breeds ranging from the Bearded Silkie and the crested Polish to the majestic Phoenix, whose tail feathers can exceed 10 feet in length.

Chickens of all sizes, shapes, and colors parade through these pages, as Green-Armytage captures the surprising and expressive personality of these amazing birds. For breeders, this will be a volume they must own; for everyone else, it will be a revelation, prized for the sheer enjoyment of the striking photographs and the extraordinary animals they portray.

STEPHEN GREEN-ARMYTAGE's photographs have appeared in many books and magazines. Author and photographer of the Abrams book Dudley: The Little Terrier That Could, he lives in New York City.

165 photographs, 160 in full color, 9 x 10"

Ratings: 5 out of 5

Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds (Paperback)

Farmers and fanciers keep an astonishing variety of poultry breeds in North America. These birds provide meat and eggs to nourish us and feathers to keep us warm. Their quirky personalities and charming good looks make them barnyard favorites. They inspire passionate devotion from show breeders and provide a living for farmers.

Presented here, breed by breed, are more than 120 barnyard fowl — from chickens and turkeys to emus and pheasants. For each animal, readers will find stunning color photography, a brief history, and a detailed description. The identifying characteristics included for each breed are: class (standard and bantam); size (for cocks and hens); appearance of comb, wattles, and earlobes; color (everything from black-breasted red to silver laced); place of origin; conservation status; and special qualities (including longevity, size and quantity of eggs, quality of meat, and other relevant uses). Author Carol Ekarius provides enough information to satisfy both the dedicated browser and the serious farmer weighing the pros and cons of multiple breeds.

In 2005, Storey's Illustrated Guide to 96 Horse Breeds of North America celebrated horses in a coffee-table reference that captivated enthusiasts of all ages. Now farmers, breeders, backyard chicken keepers, and unabashed poultry fanatics will have a definitive guide of their own. If it's poultry — fair or fowl — it's in this book.

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens: Care / Feeding / Facilities (Paperback)

Expert advice on selecting breeds, caring for chicks, producing eggs, raising broilers, feeding, troubleshooting, and much more.

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

Raising Chickens For Dummies (Math & Science) (Paperback)

Raising chickens on a small scale is a popular–and growing–pastime. And Raising Chickens For Dummies provides an up-to-date, thorough introduction to all aspects of caring for chickens, including choosing and purchasing chickens, constructing housing, and proper feeding. Raising Chickens For Dummies provides authoritative, detailed information to make raising chickens for eggs, meat, or backyard entertainment that much easier.

Learn to:

• Raise chickens in virtually any backyard

• Choose and purchase chickens

• Construct the right housing

• Feed and care for your chickens

Ratings: 5 out of 5

Keeping Chickens: The Essential Guide (Paperback)

Colorful, lively characters, chickens have become the hottest new garden accessory. This book shows enthusiasts exactly how to care for these endearing pets. The book covers everything from choosing the right breed to feeding and housing. In addition, there are fun sections on egg recipes, feather-and-egg craft projects and even a look at how chickens interact with children and other pets. From buying their first chicken to cooking with truly fresh eggs, readers will find advice and counsel for every step along the way!

Raising chickens as pets is a fashionable--and increasingly popular--hobby

*Responds to market demand: Sales of chicken-keeping supplies and books have skyrocketed

*Appeals to the growing number of people interested in a healthier, more organic lifestyle

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

How To Raise Chickens: Everything You Need To Know (How to Raise...) (Paperback)

Whichever comes first for you, the chicken or the egg, this book shows you what to do next. In this hands-on, easy-to-use guidebook, longtime chicken breeder and poultry expert Christine Heinrichs tells you everything you need to know to raise chickens in your backyard—from laying out the yard and designing a coop to choosing breeds, caring for chicks, egging, sexing, and butchering. Whether you’re interested in rare breeds or the garden variety; whether you want to show your chickens or serve them, this brightly illustrated, clearly written guide will prove an indispensable resource.

Ratings: 5 out of 5

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens: 4th Edition (Storey Guide to Raising) (Paperback)

Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens includes all the information farmers need — from choosing breeds and hatching chicks to building coops and keeping the birds healthy and safe from predators — to keep chickens or run an egg business.

The 3rd edition, now with 188,000 copies in print contains new and expanded features:
• “Fowl Disposition” — new chapter on training chickens and understanding their intelligence
• Expanded coverage of hobby farming
• Disease section now includes information on avian influenza and fowl first aid

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

Chickens are hot! There's a chicken-farming boomlet on the rise, with upscale urban and suburban homeowners from every part of the country ordering fancy breeds of chickens, hiring architects to build elegant chicken coops in their backyards, and signing up for classes on how to raise a happy, healthy flock in a small space.

Now Barbara Kilarski, a woman with a passion for poultry, offers a handbook that is as practical and encouraging as it is witty and entertaining. THE TOWN & COUNTRY CHICKEN provides the detailed information every aspiring chickenkeeper needs to know.

Like home-grown vegetables, home-raised chickens put us in touch with our rural past, give us a sense of self-sufficiency, and provide food - eggs! - for the table that is a lot tastier than anything we could find at the supermarket. And chickens are fun! Like dogs, they bond with their owners, and like kids, they do the darnedest things.

Kilarski regales the reader with tales spotlighting the joys of raising chickens, while at the same time explaining the nitty-gritty details of how to be a successful chicken keeper. Any way you look at it, chickens are a star of the domestic household. They are easy and inexpensive to raise, they don't need much living space, and they provide eggs for free. No dog or cat on the planet can make the same claim.

Ratings: 4 out of 5

Choosing and Keeping Chickens (Paperback)

Chickens make great pets. They are cheap to buy, easy to keep, and will provide you with a constant supply of fresh eggs. These feathered friends will soon endear themselves to you with their entertaining ways, providing fun for the entire family.

With information on more than 50 of the most popular breeds, Choosing and Keeping Chickens will not only help you to find the chickens that are right for you, but will also teach you how to properly care for them.

From housing to feeding, health care to breeding, all the information you'll need is covered in expert detail.

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil (Paperback)

A chicken tractor is a bottomless, portable pen that fits over your garden beds. Just set it wherever you need help in your garden. The chickens peck and scratch the soil to clean your beds, eat pest bugs and weed seeds. Best of all, they provide eggs and meat with that old-fashioned flavor. Chicken tractors have helped thousands of gardeners have better gardens and taken chickens out of factory farms and put them in the garden where they are your personal helpers.

Ratings: 4 out of 5

Chickens In Your Backyard: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback)

Your backyard can be the source of the best eggs and meat you've ever tasted. The answer is chickens--endearing birds that require but a modest outlay of time, space and food.

As they learned to raise chickens, Gail and Rick Luttmann came to realize the need for a comprehensive but clear and nontechnical guide. Their book covers all the basics in a light and entertaining sytle, from housing and feeding through incubating, bringing up chicks, butchering, and raising chickens for show.

Througout the book, the Luttmanns express their wonder at the personalities of chickens--the role of brash protector played by roosters, and the instinctive motherliness of the hens. Given some freedom and attention, these birds can become much more than the egg-and-meat machines of commercial hatcheries and broiler factories. Chickens provide backyard farmers with enjoyable pastime, as well as a supply of good food.

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

Fresh-Air Poultry Houses: The Classic Guide to Open-Front Chicken Coops for Healthier Poultry (Paperback)

Fresh Air or Bust! To stay healthy, your chickens need plenty of ventilation--probably more than they're getting today. This was discovered over 100 years ago, but has been largely forgotten. Today's small-flock housing tends to be dank, dark, and smelly. Chickens, like miners' canaries, are easily harmed by poor air quality. Wet litter breeds disease. Darkness forces chickens, like parrots, to be artificially inactive. "Dank, dark, and smelly" is a deadly combination!

Closed chicken houses are so harmful that knocking out a wall can cause an immediate improvement, even in winter. Chickens, after all, have a thick coat of feathers to keep them warm, but are vulnerable to poor air quality and pathogens in the litter; and their unwillingness to eat in the dark means they can starve in the midst of plenty.

Fresh-Air Poultry Houses was written by Dr. Prince T. Woods, a noted poultry health expert. Dr. Woods describes not only his own poultry houses, but those of many of his clients, giving the book a breadth of experience that makes it a unique resource. This 1924 book is old-fashioned and a little eccentric, but in a good way.

Fresh-Air Poultry Houses is a good example of the Norton Creek Press motto: "Most of the best books are out of print and forgotten, but we can fix that!"

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) (Paperback)

"Modern chicken production and consumption is embedded in a fascinating web of political, economic, social, and even psychological factors that need to be described, understood, and questioned. Steve Striffler, combining scholarly analysis with his remarkable brand of participatory research, has produced a masterful book, one I will recommend widely."-Kelly Brownell, Yale University (Kelly Brownell ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Ratings: 4 out of 5

Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock (Paperback)

Bring your chickens home to roost in comfort and style! Whether you're keeping one hen in a small backyard or 1,000 hens in a large free-range pasture, you will find the perfect housing plan in this comprehensive handbook.

Author and farmer Judy Pangman combed the country to select these 45 plans for housing both laying hens and meat birds (chickens or turkeys). The coops range from fashionable backyard structures featured in the annual Seattle Tilth City Chickens Tour and the Mad City Chickens Tour in Madison, Wisconsin, to the large-scale, moveable structures Joel Salatin has fashioned for Polyface Farm in Virginia.

You'll also find plans for converting trailer frames, greenhouses, and backyard sheds; low-budget alternatives for working with found and recycled materials; and simple ways to make waterers, feeders, and nestboxes. A gallery of color photographs provides other creative ideas to get you going. With basic building skills, a little elbow grease, and this book of plans, you've got all you need to shelter your flock.

Ratings: 3 out of 5

The Chicken Health Handbook (Paperback)

The editor of Rural Heritage has written a first-rate guide for the small producer interested in healthful meat and eggs as well as the exotic breed fancier raising birds for show. Having published a number of general guides to backyard poultry, including one for children, Damerow here concentrates on everything that can go wrong: diseases; problems associated with keeping birds in close quarters or caging them; litter; cannibalism; vitamin deficiency, resulting in poor molting; incubators that are too hot or too cold; predators; and the invasions of rats. She stresses that the best preventative measures involve protecting one's flock against outside influences (such as wild birds or other chickens), careful culling, and balanced nutrition. Damerow is a good writer, carefully walking the line between insulting the reader's intelligence, a flaw with many books of this sort, and giving more technical information than growers need. Her discussion of how one keeps straight which chick came from which mating--which involves the injection of food dyes into fertilized eggs, and carefully marking the webbings of feet--is downright ingenious. Flawless. John Mort

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

The Joy of Keeping Chickens: The Ultimate Guide to Raising Poultry for Fun or Profit (Paperback)

The most comprehensive full-color chicken book available.

Finally backyard farmers who want to keep a few hens for eggs have a bible that's attractive enough to leave out on the coffee table, and inexpensive enough to purchase on a whim. This comprehensive guide, written in charming prose from the perspective of an organic farmer, will appeal to readers who are interested in raising chickens, or simply want the best knowledge about how to cook them. With this in mind, farmer and animal expert Jennifer Megyesi discusses all the basic details of raising the birds—general biology, health, food, choosing breeds, and so on—and she cuts through the smoke to identify what terms like "organic," "free-range," and so on really mean for poultry farmers and consumers.

No chicken book would be complete without information on how to show chickens for prizes, and this is no different, but The Joy of Keeping Chickens also stresses the importance of self-sustainability and organic living, and the satisfaction of keeping heirloom breeds. Readers will appreciate the comprehensive nature of this readable, informative guide, and Megyesi's enthusiasm about keeping chickens. Coupled with Geoff Hansen's gorgeous full-color photographs, this text makes for an instant classic in the category.

Ratings: 5 out of 5

The Complete Encyclopedia Of Chickens (Hardcover)

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

ISBN-10: 9036615925

Barnyard in Your Backyard: A Beginner's Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Rabbits, Goats, Sheep, and Cows

The perfect book for anyone who has ever dreamed of having that little place in the country, Barnyard in Your Backyard offers tried-and-true, expert advice on raising healthy, happy, productive farm animals: chickens, geese, ducks, rabbits, goats, sheep, and dairy cows. Each chapter focuses on a different animal, discussing the pros and cons of raising the animal, housing and land requirements, feeding guidelines, health concerns, and a schedule for routine care. Species that are easy to raise, hardy, and companionable are profiled. First-time farmers will discover simple, clear instructions for caring for animals throughout the year, as well as guidelines for processing barnyard products such as milk, wool, and eggs.

Combining practical advice from real experts, easy-to-use checklists and charts, a seasonal care calendar, and detailed black-and-white illustrations, Barnyard in Your Backyard offers a comprehensive review of the ins and outs - the tribulations and triumphs - of living with and caring for a small barnyard.

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

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

APPPA Grit Magazine, Spring 2003 Anyone serious about raising chicks should add this book to their personal library, as an investment well worth it.

Ratings: 4.5 out of 5

Farm to Market: Poultry & Eggs (Home Use) - DVD

From the henhouse to the supermarket, viewers will follow eggs through the rigorous cleaning and inspection process and see how the eggs finally arrive in the grocery refrigerator. Viewers will also visit several different poultry farms, including a turkey farm and ostrich farm, to see how birds are raised. Part of the "Farm to Market" series, which introduces elementary school students to the agricultural origins of some of the foods, textiles and other products we routinely enjoy. (For Home Use Only)

Regarding Chickens, DVD Video Guide, Incubation, Hatching, Brooding & Caring for Chickens of All Breeds. Chicken Video (DVD)

A comprehensive video guide to incubating, hatching, brooding and raising any breed of chicken. Gives the viewer absolute confidence to start a backyard flock

Ratings: 5 out of 5

Farm to Market: Poultry & Eggs (DVD)

From the henhouse to the supermarket, viewers will follow eggs through the rigorous cleaning and inspection process and see how the eggs finally arrive in the grocery refrigerator. Viewers will also visit several different poultry farms, including a turkey farm and ostrich farm, to see how birds are raised. Part of the "Farm to Market" series, which introduces elementary school students to the agricultural origins of some of the foods, textiles and other products we routinely enjoy.

How to Build Your Own Aviary, Cages, Nestboxes, Etc. and $ave a Bundle

A practical guide for both the hobbyist and commercial breeders who want to save startup cost by building their own aviary and equipment. A great deal of money can be saved by doing it yourself. For example, the parakeet breeding cage described later in this book that holds two breeding pairs of birds, complete with tray, cost $10.20 to build. Manufactured cages of similar size and quality run from $50 to $70 each, plus freight. It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that you can build 5 to 7 cages for the same price that you would pay for a single store bought cage

Ratings: 5 out of 5