The Backyard Chicken Book: A Beginner's Guide

by H. Lee Schwanz

A small flock of poultry can supply all of the eggs your family needs during the year. And, after your hens have completed their egg-laying days, there will be meat for barbecuing or roasting. Luckily, a small flock takes a relatively small amount of space and is easy to manage.

If yours is one of the growing number of families interested in raising chickens for eggs or meat, The Backyard Chicken Book contains all the essential information for the hatching, brooding, rearing, and managing family-sized poultry flocks. The first step in deciding on a family flock is to determine what breed may work best for your needs. For example, you can go with a laying breed such as the White Leghorn that produces top-quality eggs but provides little meat. Or, you could select a dual-purpose Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire that provides fewer eggs but much better meat. In addition to helping you select your type, this handy guide will also tell you what you need to know

Providing housing for home poultry flocks
Rearing the laying flock pullets
Managing laying problems
Fighting pests and disease
Raising other poultry such as ducks, turkeys, geese, bantams, and guinea fowl

Enhanced with full-color photos and dozens of illustrations, The Backyard Chicken Book is the perfect guide for the first-time poultry raiser.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

Reviews

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well-organized book, but is not actually written for the backyard chicken owner. It's clearly from a few decades ago, and for a much larger operation. Some of it is outdated, and doesn't keep in mind small urban/suburban flocks in any way. It's got good information, but there are better choices out there.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of helpful information as we think about beginning our chicken endeavors, but I think this author is doing way more for his birds than we will. It had sections on other fowl that I skimmed through because we don’t plan on getting involved in other birds except possibly ducks.

[Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is geared more for larger backyard flocks than my small flock of 6, but there is still a lot of good information.

The charts in this book are worth the purchase of the book IMO. The feed and age charts, and the disease charts I have bookmarked for future use.

Definitely written more for someone who is doing this for meat and eggs, and less for someone like me who is doing it for eggs, and also just to have chickens.

Trigger warning: This would likely upset someone who gets chickens as pets, since the author utilizes culling. We aren’t culling our runts or low producers, but it’s no surprise that large operations do.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has a lot of great info - including diseases that can affect your poultry and how to provide care and management to trybto maintain a healthy flock. I do think some of it is a bit more complicated than would be needed for a truly "backyard beginner". Production on a home farm seems more like the overall aim of the book, but it does give overall good raising and care instructions that are important to apply to any size flock. It also has a short handy section at the back about other foul and how to incorporate them or not incorporate them with your chickens.

[Lisa Urbaniak · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is more for a larger operation and not for the backyard chicken keeper who is just looking to have 4 hens per the usual ordinances, no roosters, and certainly not planning to eat our pets! I skimmed the areas on keeping cooking chicken and keeping of other types of fowl. I also totally skipped the areas about building a coop. Not going to have 25-50 chickens so certainly don’t need anything that large! His stories about growing up were entertaining but did not help me with my chicken endeavors. They would’ve been fine with the right kind of info that I was looking for.

[Malia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This really didn't apply to 6 chickens... I got more out of Storey's Guide and Enyclopedia to Country Living.

[DG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uses too much jargon and not enough explanation. Feels like it’s written for someone who has been on farms or around chickens. I didn’t find this very helpful or illuminating.

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is good for hatching eggs and there is good information about housing. There is not very much about breeds.

[Wade Wagoner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative book on raising hens with important definitions and problem solving for beginners.

[Alyse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was more directed to those looking to have larger flocks than the 4 or 5 backyard chickens I intend to have. It focuses on smaller (compared to large-scale production) flocks for commercial production. The title is misleading that way but I was able to translate most of the information to my intended small flock. But I was left wondering if all of the information is applicable for someone planning to have just a few chickens so I feel I need to do more follow-up

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was helpful in that I lack poultry raising skills and needed general information before getting my home flock. The title was misleading however as this book would be more suitable for someone wanting enough chickens to border on small commercial flocks rather than home flocks. Overall I'm walking away with more knowledge than when I started which was the purpose.

[Tasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seemed to speak more on the commercial how-to rather than the backyard homesteader.

[Karen Zieman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting a guide on how to care for a small flock. This is more about near commercial levels of poultry raising. Definitely not for the urban chicken crowd.